Is MonaVie a Scam?
The short answer is yes. The longer answer? It is perhaps the most incredible example of deceptive marketing in the history of mankind.
What I’ve found is tons of irrefutable evidence supported by reputable third parties that MonaVie is a grossly overpriced product, with little nutritional value, wrapped in a poor business opportunity that appears to be illegal pyramid scheme, supported by nonsensical “scientific” studies and illegal medical claims.
That’s a lot to digest. I’m going to give you a minute to re-read that.
Typically when people are interested in MonaVie, they are focused on two things: 1) The nutritional value of the product and 2) the business opportunity. After all, the promise of MonaVie marketing is health and wealth for you and all your friends.
MonaVie’s Nutritional Value
Many of MonaVie’s claims come on something called a ORAC value. It’s a lab test that measures anti-oxidants in food. On the face of it higher ORAC seems better, but there’s a lot more to it than that. I’m not a doctor, so I’m not going to try to explain ORAC to you. However, Dr. Jonny Bowden explains that MonaVie doesn’t cure cancer and gives great detail about ORAC in the process.
There are a couple more issues with regard to MonaVie an ORAC values. High on the list is that MonaVie lies about the ORAC score of MonaVie. They published two widely different scores.
Many distributors make the claim that drinking 4 ounces of MonaVie is like eating 13 fruits and thus is a way to save money. This is a huge lie. MonaVie put out marketing material that said it “Delivers the antioxidant capacity of approximately 13 servings of fruits and vegetables in just four ounces.” MonaVie set up a the classic telephone game where the initial message conveyed changes as it passes through the downline and the words, “antioxidant capacity” get left out. In this statement, the antioxidant capacity is measured ORAC value, and the equivalent fruits and vegetables are not even mentioned. A MonaVie product specialist cleared this up when called, but MonaVie didn’t issue a clarification or change its website for years… see more at Drinking MonaVie is Not Equal to Eating 13 Fruits.
To follow up on the above, a single apple has the antioxidant capacity of 9.5 ounces of MonaVie. If a person was relying on four ounces of MonaVie to give them the equivalent of 13 fruits, they are making a huge nutritional error as 13 apples has the equivalent ORAC value as 123 ounces of MonaVie. MonaVie Original retails for around $1.48 an ounce, so that’s around $182 of juice for the equivalent antioxidant capacity of 13 apples.
A consortium of U.S. government agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), USDA, and the FDA to put out guidelines on fruit and veggies and serving size. The result is that 4 ounces of MonaVie is a Serving of fruit which looks like 1 snack container of applesauce (4oz) or about 6 baby carrots. At MonaVie’s retail price of around $6.00 for four ounces that’s like buying a baby carrot for $1.00!
If you need a little more evidence on the nutritional value of MonaVie, Men’s Journal put several fruit juices to the test using criteria set up by a director or clinical nutrition. The result was horrendous, “MonaVie tested extremely low in anthocyanins and phenolics. Even apple juice (which also tested poorly) has more phenolics…” and “Plus, MonaVie’s vitamin C level was five times lower than that of Welch’s Grape Juice. That’s not many nutrients, especially at $1.20 a serving.” Website changes have divided the article into many pieces, but the you can read it in two parts: part 1 and part 2 with the MonaVie-specific comments.
What do national doctors have to say? Dr. Andrew Weil gives a thumbs down on MonaVie, Dr. Dean Edell calls MonaVie worthless, and Dr. Joe Schwarcz warns against acai health claims. These are all unbiased, nationally-recognized doctors.
I could continue to give facts about the lack of nutrition in MonaVie, but perhaps the creator of MonaVie itself is one of the best sources. The Salt Lake Tribune reported this interesting information that came out from a lawsuit with Amway:
The suit also uncovered an internal MonaVie memo by Ralph Carson, the company’s chief science officer, who created the original juice. The memo was in response to raised eyebrows about claims being made about the juice. Carson cautioned that the drink was “expensive flavored water. Any claims made are purely hypothetical, unsubstantiated and, quite frankly, bogus.”
Those claims that he’s referring to are the illegal health claims that we’ll get to in a bit.
Juice in general is not healthy
Another aspect to consider is that juice itself is shown not to be healthy. For years we thought it was healthy, but that thinking has changed and many view soda and juice as being the same. The HBO documentary Weight of a Nation clearly spells this out.
Here are some key quotes from that video: “Soda and other sugary drinks… is the only individual food that is directly related to obesity”, “There is nothing in a soft drink that is good for you. A Twinkie or a potato chip or a candy bar has at least a little nutrition. These sugared beverages have none at all”, and “Juice is just like soda… there is no difference. When you take fruit and you squeeze it, you throw the fiber in the garbage. That was the good part of the fruit. The juice is nature’s way of getting you to eat your fiber.”
When we take the statements above together, juice the same as soda, soda having less nutrition than a potato chip, it is clear that MonaVie can’t be nutritious. The processing has stripped out the fiber… the good part of the fruit. Some may argue that MonaVie is only four ounces a day and it’s not going to contribute to obesity. Well that 120 calories a day does add up… in a year it is 12.5 pounds (43,800 yearly calories divided by 3,500 calories in a pound).
(To prevent MonaVie distributors claiming that HBO doesn’t know anything about health, Weight of a Nation was done with “the Institute of Medicine (IOM), in association with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).”)
As you can tell from the label above, MonaVie doesn’t have much of the fiber that comes from fruit naturally. Recently MonaVie started to add “fake” fiber (Fibersol-2 / Maltodextrin), so consumers looking at the nutritional label could be easily tricked into thinking that they are getting the good part of the fruit.
Need another source? Here is the New York Times article by three professors of pediatrics who explain “Juice is Not Healthy”.
MonaVie’s Specialized Health Drinks
MonaVie adds a special ingredient or two to its basic juice to create a juice for a specific purpose. The above illustrated the minimal value of the juice alone. Let’s look at a few versions:
MonaVie Active – This MonaVie juice’s star ingredients is glucosamine. In four ounces of MonaVie Active there are 1500mg of glucosamine. On Amazon.com, I found that you can get 375 tablets of Kirkland Glucosamine HCI for a price of $22.55 (as of 6/8/2012). It takes two tablets to equal the 1500mg of glucosamine in MonaVie Active, which comes out to 12 cents a day.
For a year, the Kirkland glucosamine will cost you $43.80. For a year of MonaVie Active (4 ounces * 365 days = 1460 ounces is about 58 and half bottles (25 ounces per bottle). At the retail price of $45 a bottle, 58 bottles costs $2,610 a year. You can save some money by buying MonaVie Active in bulk, but you’ll never get the price under $1000, especially with shipping. You’ll save at least a thousand dollars, perhaps two thousand by going with the equivalent cheap solution from Amazon or your local drug store.
With this noted, scientific research shows that it probably is not worth buying glucosamine at all.
MonaVie Pulse – This MonaVie juice’s star ingredients are plant sterols and resveratrol added. In four ounces of MonaVie Pulse there are 0.8g of plant sterols. I couldn’t find the amount of resveratrol. On Amazon, I found CholestOff, which actually has 0.9g of plant sterols. The 240 tablets, 120 servings, costs $22.22, which is 18.5 cents a day or $67.59 a year.
MonaVie Pulse is typically the same price as MonaVie Active above (around $2610, but cheaper if bought in bulk) and it too will cost you thousands more than the much obvious cheaper solution.
What about the resveratrol? Without knowing how much is in MonaVie Pulse, we can’t really make a fair price comparison. There is this resveratrol, which will cost you $76.19 a year. The combination of CholestOff and this resveratrol is still a bargain at around $140 compared to spending a couple of thousand dollars and not knowing how much resveratrol you’ll get.
While plant sterols have been shown to the FDA to help cholesterol levels, resveratrol remains and unknown… A couple of articles show that we might need to wait for legit evidence on resveratrol.
MonaVie M(mun) – This MonaVie juice’s star ingredient is Wellmune, a patented derivative of baker’s yeast from the pharmaceutical company, Biothera. Four ounces of MonaVie M(mun) has 250mg of Wellmune in it. Once again, I went to Amazon and found Immune Health Basics, which has 500mg of Wellmune. It costs $37.49 for 60 capsules or about 62.5 cents for 500mg. Since this is double the amount in MonaVie, the true cost per serving would be a little more than 31 cents. It costs $114 for a year’s supply of the same amount of Immune Health Basics as you’d get in MonaVie M(mun).
The pricing of M(mun) follows that of MonaVie Active and MonaVie Pulse above, meaning that you’d save thousands by buying the capsules of Immune Health Basics.
When you do a little more research you’ll find that Wellmune is also similar to beta glucans, a pill that you also might be able to find cheaply. When I last looked into Wellmune, around the time that MonaVie announced M(mun), research as to whether it was helpful was conflicting. One study of people found that they missed no more sick days than the placebo group when taking the product.
MonaVie MX – This MonaVie juice has the star ingredients of Active (glucosamine) and M(mun) Wellmune. Also, in addition to the basic 19 fruit juices in the juice it has 11 vegetables. Below, we’ll cover in more detail why this isn’t necessarily a good thing. As for pricing, this product like all of MonaVie juices is around $40, but in this case a few extra dollars due to having the glucosamine and the Wellmune in it.
MonaVie Essential and MonaVie Kosher – MonaVie essential seems to be a rework of “MonaVie Original” which is the basic juice with no star ingredients. MonaVie Kosher is a basic juice with no star ingredients that has been certified Kosher.
Bottom Line on MonaVie Nutrition: Any way you slice it (pun intended), MonaVie is not a good source of nutrition when compared to time-tested advice of just eating fruits and vegetables. If you are thinking about MonaVie as a dietary supplement, it represents the worst value for you dollar… and it isn’t even close. The examples I gave of a single person spending thousands more than equivalent product is multiplied when you consider a family of four. That family could save an average of over $6000+ a year by replacing MonaVie’s juices with products found in your drug store or on the Internet. Depending on your tax bracket, this simple decision could be the equivalent of getting a $10,000 raise tomorrow or winning a lottery that pays you $10,000 for life.
Does MonaVie Work?
While the talk of many, many testimonials may seem convincing, such testimonials are typical with any MLM product, especially health ones. The fact that you can many testimonials for dozens of other MLM products shows that these testimonials are not unique to MonaVie products… or any ingredients in those products. Instead, there’s a wide variety of psychological phenomena with MLM health products that give people the perception that the products work. For more details see:
No Your MLM Health Product Does Not “Work.”
The MonaVie Business Opportunity
MonaVie is sold via multi-level marketing also known as MLM. I’ve written about The Business of MLM (or What Gives Freddy Krueger Nightmares) before and is terrible. Here’s a quick recap… click on the links to read more in detail:
- Around 99.54% of People Lose Money in MonaVie – This analysis was done using MonaVie’s Income Disclosure Statement (IDS) the last time they included the number of distributors to make such calculations possible.
- No Barriers to Entry – Since anyone can be a distributor for usually very little money, anyone can be your direct competitor.
- MLM Distributors Lack Control of the Business – MonaVie can take your business away whenever it feels like it for whatever reason they want. I think MJ DeMarco might have said it best in his book Millionaire Fast Lane, “I was involved in four MLM companies. Not once do I remember dictating product decisions, research and marketing, marketing restriction, rules, cost analysis or any other activity fundamental to owning a business. As a network marketer, you don’t own a business – you own a job managing and creating a sales organization… MLM distributors are commissioned employees disguised as entrepreneurs.”
Below we’ll get to the point about MonaVie and pyramid schemes. We’ll cover how “creating a sales organization in MLM” can be considered as participating in illegal pyramid scheme.
- MLM and the Reality of Saturation – Recruiting people into MonaVie is where the Diamonds make their money. The problem is that the market is already saturated. You simply can’t go to the top of the pyramid anymore because those positions have been taken for years. In order to get there you have to build thousands of people under you and if those people wanted to be juice salesmen they would have been long before now.
- Understanding the Churn Rate in MLM – Somewhere between 60% and 90% of distributors in MLMs leave the business every year because of the first bullet point above. They didn’t make any money. MLMs replace these people with new hopefuls because their sales pitch is enticing. When MonaVie recruits someone they tell them that they too can have health and wealth for them and all their friends. Who wouldn’t want that? The scheme churns through people every year with enough people quitting and joining so that the pyramid scheme never explodes past the population of the earth.
MLM distributors like say that it is up to the person to do the work and not be “Lazy.” Well I’m an expert on Lazy and I can tell you that isn’t the truth. In MLM, losing is not a matter of effort, it’s a mathematical certainty. The circumstances surrounding the system set people up to fail.
MonaVie’s Illegal Health Claims
When I first wrote about MonaVie and wondered why people would spend $45 on juice, I had no idea how the product was marketed. I was shocked as distributors left comments connecting MonaVie to helping with cancer, autism, fibromyalgia, and just about any and every other medical condition under the sun. MonaVie has not been approved by the FDA to help with such conditions making these claims illegal.
It wasn’t until later that I learned that MonaVie CEO was the Vice President of Dynamic Essentials a company that madeRoyal Tondan Limu juice. The FDA warned the company about website claims to treat various diseases such as cancer, arthritis, and Attention Deficit Disorder caused their products to be in violation of the law. The company continued to sell the product and the FDA and Department of Justice fined the company millions and went as far as destroying the product. The action essentially put an end to Dynamic Essentials.
Dallin Larsen held “fireside chats” with hundreds of people. There is one “fireside” chat on Archive.org. He tells this convincing story how Dynamic Essentials is part of a publicly traded company with products in Wal-Mart and that they found this fascinating ingredient called Limu Moui. He goes on to essentially claim that limu that unique benefits to help with the system. At the 7:25 minute mark of the audio, Larsen tells of how he just came back from a tour talking to people who have used the product and tells of the stories he heard and how it has helping with asthma, arthritis, chronic fatique, fibromyalgia, lupis, migrane headaches, etc. He then goes to say that “We can’t make [the claim that you aren’t going to get cancer and heart disease]… I know that this product is having a benefitial impact on people’s health.
MonaVie, is an identical copy-cat of Royal Tongan Limu juice, but with acai instead of limu. The illegal health claims that I’ve seen in the comments on my article and elsewhere on the Internet come straight from the leadership.
Newsweek did a story on MonaVie in which Dallin Larsen acknowledged that while MonaVie has an 18-person compliance team which investigates distributors making false claims, “It’s next to impossible, like herding cats.” In short, MonaVie opened Pandora’s Box with their distribution system. The proper solution to fix this systemic problem is to distribute the product like Ocean Spray or Welch which doesn’t have these problems. MonaVie refuses this logical solution that would prevent consumers from be defrauded out of their hard-earned money and still allow them to get the product to those who were interested in it.
When I found MonaVie distributor Mitch Biggs claiming that MonaVie prevents swine flu, I decided to help out MonaVie’s compliance team and let them know. Mitch Biggs should know better. He was a MonaVie Emerald Executive, one of the top 166 distributors at the time, who make an average $155,000 a year. My goal was to find out how MonaVie would enforce the its policies and procedures which allow it to end a distributorship who is caught making illegal claims. Would MonaVie do what’s right and make an example to show distributors that they can’t be making these claims? Or would MonaVie cave, not wanting to create a rift amongst its distributors? The answer: Mitch Biggs Scams People and MonaVie Condones It.
A recent commenter suggested that MonaVie’s compliance was doing its job, so I showed him this story, which is about two years ago as of this pointing (June 2012). I decided to go an look and see if MonaVie is still letting Mitch Biggs be a distributor, which lead me to this video on a local news show. It seems like Mitch and Ashley Biggs are making erroneous and deceptive claims multiple times saying that MonaVie is an “easy, convenient and tasteful, way to get your fruit every day” and “just an easy, easy, way to get your fruit.” As we saw in a section above, MonaVie’s Nutritional Value, this is quite untrue. The spot even took the effort to bring a vase of 13 fruits to illustrate the deception.
It may seem like I’m picking on one distributor, but this is a leading distributor who was made an example of once before and yet continues to break the law publicly. If this is the stuff that is going on in the open, imagine what is going on behind closed doors!
Some may suggest that this is an isolated case – one example of a bad seed that every industry has. That’s simply untrue. It is a systematic problem which is so prevalent that Dr. Johnny Bowden’s article that I mentioned at the very beginning of this article was titled, “No More Claiming MonaVie Cures Cancer!” These are the kinds of things that happens when you tell distributors that they can be millionaires if you recruit enough people to buy a juice that happens to be priced at 20 times more than other juices. The distributors have to come up with some way to market the obscenely overpriced product. They are naturally going to try to make a point that it is a value for consumers as a replacement for medicine or something seemingly expensive like buying a vase of 13 fruits.
MonaVie’s Deceptive Marketing
If I were to go into depth about MonaVie’s deceptive marketing, I would never finish writing this article. This article is already so long that I wonder if you’ll read it. There’s just too much to say. I also think I covered a lot of it above. So here I’ll just give a few more examples:
In the above section, MonaVie’s Nutritional Value, I went into detailed the 13-servings of fruit and ORAC score myth. That’s a typical example of the marketing to keep in mind. Here are a few others:
- 19 fruits in the juice – MonaVie adds all these juices because the public has a perception that more juices is better. That’s not necessarily true. Regular readers know that a mutual fund with more stocks does not necessarily out-perform those with fewer stocks. A pizza with a 7-cheese blend is not necessarily better than one with a 3-cheese blend. In fact, the more ingredients, the easier it is to dilute the ingredients that MonaVie touts like acai. When you have 18 other fruits in addition to acai, the amount of acai could be less than 6% and still be the first ingredient on the list. However, if MonaVie only had 2 fruits and acai was listed first, you’d know that you are getting at least 50% acai in every ounce.
- Freeze-dried acai – For years MonaVie touted the amount of freeze-dried acai because it had a huge ORAC score. The reason it got such a high score is the fact that water was taken out, which allowed them to pack more powder per ounce. However, it was shown that MonaVie is less than 2% freeze-dried acai, meaning that even with a high score, there wasn’t enough of it to make a significant difference.
MonaVie’s “Studies”
MonaVie relies heavily on their Scientific Advisory Board, specifically Dr. Alexander Schauss. Schauss has a long list of reputation problems. One of them was that he faked his credentials and got a mail-order PhD degree from California Coast University. MonaVie pitched Schauss as an expert on acai, but they are the only ones who recognized him for anything like this. The reality is that Schauss was the supplier of his OptiAcai brand to MonaVie.
Schauss, through his AIBMR Life Sciences, pumped out a lot of “research” which could fool some people into thinking that there was actual science. In fact, MonaVie product specialist Erica Bryant wrote distributors to tell them that AIBMR is the only source of that they should use. Some of this research led to ridiculous papers such as this “Double-Blinded, Placebo-Controlled Study” on MonaVie by Schauss. It doesn’t take a scientist to see that it was made for the specific purpose of giving distributors fuel to recruit more people. Tellingly, the final conclusion of the study made mention of another study that showed that eating fruit had positive results as well.
MonaVie: An Illegal Pyramid Scheme?
I believe MonaVie is an illegal pyramid scheme. Here’s why:
[survata] The FTC has a lot to say on the topic of multi-level marketing (MLM) and pyramid schemes. The best article is this one: The Bottom Line About Multi-Level Marketing Plans that warns:“Not all multilevel marketing plans are legitimate. Some are pyramid schemes. It’s best not to get involved in plans where the money you make is based primarily on the number of distributors you recruit and your sales to them, rather than on your sales to people outside the plan who intend to use the products.”
The entire article from the FTC is well worth reading. Here’s another important letter from the FTC which has this quote:
“The Commission’s recent cases, however, demonstrate that the sale of goods and service; alone does not necessarily render a multi-level system legitimate. Modern pyramid schemes generally do not blatantly base commissions on the outright payment of fees, but instead try to disguise these payments to appear as if they are based on the sale of goods or services. The most common means employed to achieve this goal is to require a certain level of monthly purchases to qualify for commissions. While the sale of goods and services nominally generates all commissions in a system primarily funded by such purchases, in fact, those commissions are funded by purchases made to obtain the right to participate in the scheme. Each individual who profits, therefore, does so primarily from the payments of others who are themselves making payments in order to obtain their own profit. As discussed above, such a plan is little more than a transfer scheme, dooming the vast majority of participants to financial failure.”
This appears to be how MonaVie works. Distributors in the upline earn commissions based on the purchase of other distibutors below. The distributors below are required to be “active”, which means either:
(A) buying product themselves or
(B) selling twice the requirement to a preferred customer
When a distributor satisfies the requirement by (A) buying product for themselves and MonaVie pays a commission to the upline on that purchase that it can be considered a pyramid scheme using the FTC’s guidelines. This is the typical way that requirement is satisfied. The distributor application for MonaVie prominently includes the Auto-Ship Program (ASP) so that new distributors can satisfy the active by buying product requirement right away.
The option (B) to qualify as active by recruiting enough preferred customers, is a new option. Previously the only method was the above option A) which makes it quite clear that MonaVie could only be viewed as a pyramid scheme. With the new option (B) it becomes a little more complex. Since (A) is a sign of a pyramid scheme, we need data from MonaVie on the percentage of distributors that qualify through the (B) option. (MonaVie doesn’t disclose this information.) Anecdotal evidence tells me that the (B) option is quite rare. As explained in the above section, MonaVie’s Nutritional Value, MonaVie’s juices represent a poor product at an extremely expensive price (approximately 20 times the price, ounce for ounce, of other 100% fruit juices). In the rare case that a preferred customer is buying the product, it is mostly like that they were sold on the illegal medical claims or deceptive marketing, as described in the section above.
For more sources about MLMs and pyramid schemes from the FTC and others, I’ve put together a compilation here: MLMs Vs. Pyramid Schemes
[/survata]How you can help put an end to the scam
The best way to put an end to this scam is to go to the FTC Complaint Assistant and file a complaint. A recent article on CNBC had comments from the FTC saying that few people file complaints on these schemes and thus they rarely put in the resources to investigate them. There are two reasons why there are so few complaints:
- People are brainwashed from the beginning that the system “works”, and “the only variable is you.” Thus people feel as if it is their own failure rather than recognizing the system was mathematically set up to fail over 99% of people from the beginning.
- The FTC doesn’t do anything. You leave a complaint and that’s the end of it. The complainant gets no follow-up from the FTC and there’s never any evidence that the complaint is ever read. It’s fundamentally terrible system… but that’s what we have to work with.
With that said, if you’re as upset as I am about people being lied to and defrauded out of their money, please leave a complaint. If you do, please sent me a quick mail. This way, I’ll have an idea of the minimum number of complaints that MonaVie is getting.
MonaVie Mynt
Update: MonaVie has started marketing to college students and those who have recently graduated. These are probably the worst candidates for such overpriced MLM products. They have little income and often high student loans. I believe that MLMs have nowhere else to turn as the general population know that it’s a scam. I think they believe they will catch them early before they’ve gathered the wisdom to know to stay away.
I wrote a whole article about MonaVie Mynt.
[Editor’s Note: This article itself is a constant work in progress. I didn’t have the space to get into explaining the scamming behind MonaVie’s MORE charity. Publication deadlines force me to publish this without proofreading. In the future, I hope to go into more of MonaVie’s products like its RVL line of weight loss, which is a copy of other other MLMs and also a terrible value compared to the equivalents in stores. However, at this point, it does more to help people to get this information in their hands quickly and that means saving some of the editing for another day.]
It’s quite clear MFM and his twin brother Athlete 82 CANNOT STAND seeing the truth.
Two peas in a pod….good god, there’s two of them!
Is Brig Hart a good man or just a liar full of crap? Along with the Merritts like Steve and his wife. and others. And how about the Roush’s? They were my upline when I was in MV. Did they lie and deceive people into Monavie to get into the Black Diamond Ranks? I guess my question is, why are there some really successful people in Monavie and so many that aren’t. Or any MLM company that matter? How do some become so successful like Eric Worre (Network Marketing Pro) and Randy Gage ( both in Agel). Thanks guys
im confused, i thought this was a rambling site for the dozen or so buddies who are campaigning against MV? so i felt like enlightening you as to the Real World and how many people are Really getting screwed by institutions much larger than MV.
It seems no one wants to address the actual SEVERITY of your claims, or MV’s! Its is Effin Juice!
It says right on it that its not APPROVED by the FDA so any Claims about the effectiveness is null and void Immediately, right? so why all the fuss?
Why does MV have to hold itself above the entire supplement industry???
You know half the stuff at GNC is Pixie Dust, right?
HATING the business model itself is not enough to stop it from functioning, you have to BEAT it through Market Competition.
Guess what? If all you guys are right, no one will consume the beverage and it will go out of business.
Take an Economics class
Athlete 82,
I wanted you over email to be on the topic of MonaVie. ABC Financial, Enzyte, and sub-prime loans have nothing to do with MonaVie. As Vogel points out, it doesn’t make sense to get into a game of “what’s more evil – ‘X’ or Monavie.”
Personally, I’ve never heard or see a gym charge $200 to sign up. If you see such a gym, you should go to another one. There’s plenty out there that will waive all fees or charge $25. They won’t charge you when you cancel. If they try to simply call up your credit card company and tell them the company is billing you without permission. They’ll ship out a new card number and the gym won’t be able to charge you.
I think most people know that Enzyte is a scam. Plus more than two years ago the founder was sent to jail and give back “more $500 million dollars it bilked from customers.” – http://consumerist.com/2008/08/whos-smiling-now-enzyte-scammer-gets-25-years-in-prison.html
The severity of the claims has already been addressed many times. There are hundreds of thousands of people losing money according to the MonaVie IDS. Of course since that IDS is way out of date and interest in MonaVie is drying up, I guess it’s less severe.
Thanks for admitting that it is “Effin Juice.” Let’s treat it as such and put it on the grocery store for a $4 like all the other “Effin Juices” out there. This isn’t hard people – many companies are able to figure out how to do it.
I’m sure the bottle doesn’t say that it isn’t approved by the FDA. If all the claims about effectiveness are null and void, why is MonaVie (corporate itself) and its distributors making them? Wouldn’t it be best to stop all the illegal activity at its root cause? Why yes it would!
You can complain about the supplement industry, but when I look at creatine (just one example) the prices of the products are pretty close to each other. When I look at the 100% juice the same should be true. There shouldn’t be a $4 one and a $45 one without the $45 proving why it is better. You should probably go back and read the original article. I don’t see a $15 creatine and then a $150 creatine of the same size that seems exactly the same. If I did see one, I may write an article about it. If someone tries to sell my family on a $150 creatine as they tried to do with MonaVie, then I will surely write about it. No one has been stupid enough to even attempt such a thing.
Athlete 82, you are confused about the business of MonaVie. It isn’t a juice business… it is in the pyramid scheme business. No one is paying $45 for the juice because they like the juice. They only buy and drink the juice because it is the entrance fee to the business that people are brainwashed into. If you read about the psychology of cults, you’ll see that they all apply to MonaVie.
The way to test if MonaVie is subject to actual economics is to put it on a store shelf. Let’s see how the product does when it isn’t an entrance fee into a business that people are lied to about.
I must have missed the part where GNC dressed up a child rapist in surgical scrubs and had him pretend to be an oncologist while claiming to prospective recruits that Monavie cures cancer.
Oh wait…GNC didn’t do that…Monavie did.
Fool!
Yes. About those doctors.
Check this website
http://legacybusinessgroup.blogspot.com/2010/06/monavie-international-convention.html
…where, after recounting the prose from various quacks (Strauss et al), the author states;
This had me in stitches and I nearly went for it, but what really piqued my interest, was one of the many naff phrases stuck onto the picture which I’ve just uploaded onto my site here for safe-keeping.
http://strangelyperfect.tv/wp-content/uploads/fiber1.jpg
If someone could just explain to me what the phrase “Regulates Penetration” actually means in the medical or nutritional sense I’d be grateful, as I’m feeling a bit like Mr Thicko of Thickshire.
To compound my feelings of inadequacy, going down the same blogspot page I then reached the language barrier that is the paragraph entitled “Pay Plan Enhancements”…..
Apparently, if I have 3 legs I get a million dollars, but I may have to spread my pear legs over 4 stars to get an overflow leg. Or something.
My brain hurts.
Still. I get to “naturalise the pH of my body”, “extend my life” and “repair my DNA”. But nowhere does it say anything about bears.
Yours,
Confused, yet delighted!
Lazyman,
“They only buy and drink the juice because it is the entrance fee to the business that people are brainwashed into. If you read about the psychology of cults, you’ll see that they all apply to MonaVie.”
Couldn’t agree more with that statement! What I can’t understand is why some people fall for their whole spiel and others can see it for the scam it is.
It seems most of the “pro-Monavie” people posting have already been “trianed” to defend this crap and don’t realize they sound like jackasses.
Tarin,
I believe MonaVie has a pitch that people want to believe. Their promise of “health and wealth for their friends and family” is something that would appeal to everyone I know. There are a lot of other psychological tricks used as well.
Lazyman,
I can understand the “health and wealth for their friends and family” thing but they take it too far.
Also, I don’t know too much about computers but the two times I’ve read your blog today a Monavie pop-up came up both times. Something about reading a story of how successful a guy named Jonathan Budd became promoting Monavie. Don’t know if this has happened to anyone else but it’s pretty weird given the whole point of the blog.
Gee, have they turned into hackers now too?
There shouldn’t be any pop-up ads on my site. Sometimes software on your computer can see what websites you are going to and deliver a pop-up based on that. I do show advertisements, but many of them I don’t personally get to approve. Google decides what is “relevant” – and in this case it would make since that such an ad would come up.
We know that MV does not have FDA approval (several MV drones seem quite proud of the fact). We know that MV advertising is not mainstream media as well. In fact, most of it seems to be works of fiction dreamt up by the drones. Plenty of the ridiculous claims have been listed on these very pages.
But note! In the UK, Coca-cola has had an advert pulled for claiming it was “nutritious”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12218673
On reading the item, I wondered what the consequences of such a thing happening to MV would be especially if the MV heads were made truly accountable for the actions of their drones and not wash the issue away like Pontius Pilate.
Just wanted to thank you for opening my eyes. My friend left me with a bottle of MV to try and I have been reluctant to do so until I get all the facts. I think I’ve read enough. I’m throwing it out of my fridge. Thank you.
You guys are sad! Mona-Vie is a excellent product that can change your health and you financially (if you decide to do the business). My husband and I have been drinking the juice for 9 months and it has changed our lifes! For all of you that think the juice is too expansive, I feel bad that you think your health has a price. This juice has helped people get off there medications and have cured people from illnesses like you wouldn’t believe! Whoevere made up this article should get there facts straight and its sad that your trying to scam people from getting healthy and possible getting wealthy. Its people like you that give us more motivation to get out there share the juice and inform people with the real facts… we’re NOT a scam! Mona-Vie for life!
Thanks star (Tony Jackson – Distributor ID #2812398),
Since you been drinking the juice for 9 months, I’m sure you’ve done your research on it. For example, you read all the things at Juice Scam, such as how MonaVie lack nutrition and that 4 ounces is one serving of fruit (or 6 baby carrots.
You know that it is against the law to say, “This juice has helped people get off there medications and have cured people from illnesses like you wouldn’t believe!” It has not undergone and completed any of the clinical trials that the FDA require for such a statement to be made. It is also against the FTC guidelines and MonaVie’s policy. Statements like those are what got Dallin Larsen’s last “miracle” fruit juice company, Royal Tongan Limu, shut down by the FTC and the DoJ. Ironically, there is no Royal Tongan Limu in MonaVie. Maybe next time it will be some other exotic fruit.
As for the business, 99.64% of people lose money… and it isn’t a matter of effort, it is simply mathematics.
I invite you to read to get the real facts rather than the lies that MonaVie and your upline is telling you.
Star (Tony) said: “I feel bad that you think your health has a price.”
And I’m amazed that you think that it doesn’t. Ever look at a breakdown of charges on a hospital bill? Health certainly has a price. Even gym memberships have a price; and yes, fruit juice too. In the case of fruit juice, the price is about $4 a bottle — your retarded crap sells for $45 a bottle. The point being that no one needs to spend $45 for juice; and yours delivers nothing that distinguishes it from $4 juice. Maybe you just like overpaying for things. If that’s the case, I have some $5 bills I’ll sell you for $50 a pop. Sound like a good deal? No? But how can you put a price on money?
Lastly, Monavie doesn’t do squat for health. You’re either a liar or a deluded dreamer if you suggest otherwise.
Star (Tony) said: “This juice has helped people get off there (sic) medications and have (sic) cured people from illnesses like you wouldn’t believe! Whoevere (sic) made up this article should get there (sic) facts straight – “
Wow! Does Monavie kill ones cognizance of grammar and spelling too? You are right, I wouldn’t believe it, but why don’t you at least make an effort to convince us? State the facts. How can you accuse us of not knowing facts, when the “facts” to which you refer are nothing but nondescript testimonials from your friends? How is that we should come to know of these particular stories? So straighten us out Tony. Tell us about all these miracle cures. Gives us names and dates and verifiable medical details – or you could just do everyone a favor (including yourself) and F off before we report you to the FDA for illegal marketing. And I’m sure the head office is cool with how you’re selling the juice, so if we were to notify them about what you’re posting here, they won’t pull your distributorship right Tony?
Folks, meet Tony Jackson — a Silver-level distributor (according to the last rank advancement announcement) who is pulling in (best case scenario) a little under 30K a year to go around trying to convince people to go off their medication in lieu of $45 a bottle scandal-tonic. What a sad, sad existence. Hide your wallets folks — Tony’s a comin’!
Oh, that’s rich, Star. WE are the ones scamming people. I was involved for 1.5 years, lost money, but that didn’t matter to me because I was getting dramatic health benefits right? Not right. I was paying over $160 a month for something that gave me the nutritional equivilent of ONE serving of fruit a day. Do your research. That could have bought me a hell of a lot of fruits and vegetables.
My joint pain continued on in spite of this miracle juice, my cholesterol levels, unchanged as were my blood pressure levels. I have friends who were promised it would help with their rheumotoid arthritis pain so they began drinking it at my behest. SIX months and no change, plus they were spending money for their regular medications. I felt horrible for making them spend money they didn’t have because I was lied to by these vultures.
So, lets sum up, shall we? Health benefits…nope! Financial benefits…only for the people that got in to this pyramid scheme early enough…so, resounding no as well. The one thing I DID get out of this was a great education regarding cults/scams/pyramid schemes. No one will EVER do this to me, my friends and my family again.
You say: “Its people like you that give us more motivation to get out there share the juice and inform people with the real facts – ” I beg you, tell us YOUR version of the facts. MY bet is you haven’t done any independant research on the product or company as a credible business person would, which is why we are perilously close to reporting you to the FDA. Ignorance is no longer a defense. You have been warned that you are contravening Monavie’s own rules, as well as those of the FDA.
And, oddly enough, it is people like you that strengthens my campaign to shut this company/cult down before you hurt any more people with your lies.
Tony, In case you’re wondering why your friends are dropping like flies and people avoid you, just re-read your post. You sound exactly like the stupid Monavie DVD that I was forced to watch. You know the one, with couples sitting by a pool or beach with palm trees in the background babbling about how great Monavie is and how you’ve made millions. Think about it, you sound ridiculous and annoying to people around you.
What’s most pathetic about your post is actually saying “I feel bad that you think your health has a price”. Um, I’d rather keep my relationships with friends and family intact than make a few bucks being an embarrassment to them by peddling stupid juice.
I was astonished at my close family members reaction when my family and I said it sounded like a scam. She sent a video to my mother saying that she would rather stick thumb tacks into her eyes than talk to her again. I could not believe she sent something with such hate as we have all been very close for many years. Like sisters and my mother has been like a second mother to her. Are they feeding these people subliminal messages while they attend the meetings? Putting something in the food at luncheons? This is so out of characteristic for her. I told her that I love her and I would hate for anyone to take advantage of her only to receive no response from her. SAD
Star states “You guys are sad!”
Oh this I have to hear…
Star continues “Mona-Vie is a excellent product that can change your health and you financially (if you decide to do the business).”
Speak for yourself, fool! Drinking a PROCESSED and CHEMICALLY PRESERVIED fruit punch may well be an improvement in your diet, which speaks words about the state of same in the first instance, however there are those of us for whom Monavie isn’t acceptable supplement or substitute for fresh, wholesome fruit.
The only change you can expect to your finances through your involvement in a product based pyramid scheme such as Monavie is rapid deterioration! Lazyman has already provided you with the link which confirms that the likely outcome for Monavie’s distributors is LOSS in 99.64% of time.
Star states “My husband and I have been drinking the juice for 9 months and it has changed our lifes!”
Now THAT is sad.
Star states “This juice has helped people get off there medications and have cured people from illnesses like you wouldn’t believe!”
Of course we wouldn’t believe it! Especially since Monavie’s own website states that Monavie (nor any of its ingredients) does NOT treat, cure or mitigate the symptoms of any disease and condition AND ooops…distributors such as yourself aren’t allowed to use terms or phrases that suggest same.
http://monavieuniversity.zaah.net/?s=fruit+juice+products
And I certainly don’t feel bad in referring a snakeoil huckster such as yourself to Monavie’s own Policies and Procedures which states
2.1.6. I will be truthful in my representation of MonaVie Products and make no claims regarding the health benefits of MonaVie Products that violate the law.
2.1.15. I will abide by all of MonaVie’s Policies and Procedures.
2.3.8. Unethical Activity. You agree to be ethical and professional at all times when conducting your MonaVie distributorship…examples of unethical activities include, but are not limited to the following, some of which are further described in these P&Ps:
2.3.8.1. Making unapproved claims about the Product;
2.3.8.3. Making false statements or misrepresentation of any kind, including but not limited to…performance of the Products;
4.1.1 Product Claims. You may make claims about the Products that are in the Official MonaVie Materials of the country for which it is approved. You shall not make claims about the Product that are not in the Official MonaVie Materials.
By making unapproved claims about Monavie, you have conducted yourself in an unethical manner by breaching company policy AND breaking the law.
http://monaviemediacenter.com/blogs/5-tips-every-monavie-distributor-needs-to-know-about-the-new-ftc-guidelines/
Star states “Whoevere made up this article should get there facts straight and its sad that your trying to scam people from getting healthy and possible getting wealthy.”
Unlike yourself who makes entirely unfounded and illegal claims, we DON’T need to make up anything to prove Monavie is a scam ““ everything stated in support of this statement is based on demonstrable FACTS.
Star states “Its people like you that give us more motivation to get out there share the juice and inform people with the real facts… we’re NOT a scam! Mona-Vie for life!”
It’s fortunate for any unwitting consumer that a site such as this exists ““ particularly those who have been subjected to the blatant lies and misrepresentations such as you’ve subjected us to but who would rather be presented with the FACTS so that they may make a truly informed decision about their health and financial well being.
You’re not just a scam, you’re a f-ing liability to anyone who’s unfortunate enough to believe in anything you say considering you’re either entirely ignorant (believable considering your obvious literacy deficits) or are too greedy to care.
Monav-idiot for life??!! For your sake and for the sake of any family and friend who you may potentially lure into a scheme on the basis of misleading health claims and investing into an opportunity that doesn’t exist, I certainly hope not!
Star said:
“Mona-Vie for life!”
Sounds like a good prison sentence to me!
LOL! + 1
Make No Mistake: If you live in the Eugene Oregon area and have recently been hit hard by the downturn in the economy, MonaVie Blue Diamond Executives, Todd Bishop and Amy Freeman, want to meet with you. BEWARE!!!
The Todd Bishop – Amy Freeman Team is VERY good at telling you exactly what you want to hear with respect to MonaVie and success: That is, you have a chance to regain your life and then some with MonaVie.
Think again… Since Todd Bishop and Amy Freeman began promoting the MonaVie Business in 2005, they have personally left a small town worth of people (businesses) behind with no support (nearly 2000 people/families). The vast majority of these businesses are either dead or are dying with no hope of ever producing a positive income.
If you think Todd Bishop and Amy Freeman want to help you with YOUR best interests in mind, think again. The only interest they have in mind for you is the VERY VERY VERY small possibility that you might become a producer in their business. Once they find out you can’t/won’t produce, they’ll leave you hanging and will most likely never talk to you again, just like the vast majority of people they bring into the MonaVie business.
Todd Bishop and Amy Freeman KNOW that every new MonaVie distributor has an EXTREMELY small chance of ever making any real income from the opportunity, yet they both routinely lie in their presentations and claim achieving success is almost assured.
It is this LIE that the MonaVie Business Opportunity will work for everyone that will eventually catch up with Todd Bishop and Amy Freeman. As MonaVie grows and the Federal Government starts to take notice (I believe the government already is taking notice), the government will take notice of these statements and someone will need to account for them. At some point, the State and/or Federal Government is going to be talking to Amy Freeman and Todd Bishop about FRAUD.
This is only the beginning… Monavie, LLC (Monavie, Inc) gives their distributors, representatives, FAR to much latitude in terms of how these people represent their company and the business opportunity. By in a large, MonaVie distributors falsely represent MonaVie the Product and MonaVie the Business Opportunity.
Ok what happened?? I know purplehorror.com was a site where you could post and read information such as this site and know its changed to a pro monavie bussines?? Did he sell the site monavie?? Can anyone help me understand this??
No one knows. I wrote about it here: http://www.juicescam.com/purple-horror/
That seems to be part of a larger picture: http://www.juicescam.com/monavie-tries-to-suppress-the-truth/
This recent post is only tangentially related to MonaVie, but I think it’s worth a read for people who are Pro-MonaVie or Anti-MonaVie.
SodaStream: Product of the Year 2010
Monavie does not cost anything once your in the business and you expand and go forward with it. The Juice Pays for itself.
If the you think the Price is too much, then go buy some cheap stuff from the grocery store.
Although Acai is Highly Parishable and only grows in the Amzaon Rain Forest.
MonaVie is Also no scam, we make no claims, Monaive has no drugs in it. It does not Need to be approved by the FDA dispite, any thing FDA Says.
FDA are Crooked and about Control Read ON:
FDA has Been Currupted to FAVER Business.
They arn’t intrested in Keeping you safe, Did you know that any Drug in the Market Only Needs to Pass 2 Trials before FDA WILL APPROVE IT TO BE SOLD.
RESEARCH FDA and you will be Surpized.
If you Wan’t More of the Truth Regarding FDA and AMA Watch Video – Healing Cancer From Inside Out – by Mike Anderson.
Also Research FDA INFO SHOCKING:
FDA Trys To Control Our Health, and What We Eat!
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/fda-from-corruption-to-tyranny/
Monavie
Only MonaVie has AcaVie and research has shown that by freeze-drying the berry, most, if not all of the potent phytochemicals can be retained as opposed to other forms of drying processes. MonaVie uses a patent-pending protected freeze-dried açai (known as OptiAcai) as its star ingredient in their juice blends.
If you really want to FEEL IT MonaVie is aimed and formulated to for better Health. And uses Freeze Dry to Try to Preserve all the Nutriants for people who want the most out of acai.
For More Info Look Here:
Monavie was first introduced in January, 2005, with the launch of the scientifically formulated nutritional products which featured an exclusive blend using the acai, (ah-sigh-EE) berry. Because of the antioxidants and phytonutrients, Monavie provides you with specific nutritional contents designed for a healthy and active lifestyle.
Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/alternative-medicine-articles/is-monavie-the-leading-acai-berry-juice-provider-930496.html#ixzz1CDQzEwlc
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
You want to buy Cheap Acai Go to Local Grocery Store.
If you look for Quality, and a Product Aimed to Preserve as much of Acai as Possible Visit MonaVie.
Trevor, you are reading/viewing all of the material that Monavie Inc wants you to read/view. You tell US to research the product but you have done absolutely none yourself. I WAS involved with Monavie and the claims of nutritional content etc. were starting to sound a bit “too good to be true” to me so I did my own research and found that it is NOTHING BUT HUGELY OVERPRICED FRUIT JUICE. It appears to contain very little acai because an ordinary, non organic store bought apple contains more anti-oxidants then a daily serving of Monavie. You DO know why they harp on the acai content, right? Because they want you to believe that Monavie is high in acai, therefore high in anti-oxidants. According your own Dr. Schauss, this is not true. Your beloved, magic juice contains very little in the way of anti-oxidants. Did you know that sweetie? Did ya?
Anyways, I weary of people like you who don’t even have the wherewithall to “spell check” because it would make you look like less of a buffoon. We don’t have to really even convince the public because if they have questions about Monavie & they are actually doing independant RESEARCH, they will find this site, read the articles which are linking to independant studies and make their decision. It will make it a hell of a lot easier to make that decision when they see that their own distributors don’t know about their own product and are too lazy to even educate themselves on it. Bravo Trevor, do us all a favor and keep posting.
Wow! That was quite a post Trevor — another deluded fool with a persecution complex invoking off-topic conspiracy theories to defend Monavie’s grape juice pyramid scam. It doesn’t merit a detailed reply, but a quick comment is in order. The wonky conspiracy theory website Trevor linked to, which aside from other insane indictments, accuses the FDA of trying to implant microchips on US citizens, refers to an Iowa district court lawsuit launched by the “Farm-To-Consumer Legal Defense Fund” against Janet Sebelius and the US Dept of Health. The case was rejected as meritless by the US Attorney’s office.
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/fda-from-corruption-to-tyranny/
What I found particularly interesting was that the first comment posted on the conspiracy theory website, which offered glowing support, was posted by Rebecca Carley, MD, who claims to be a court-certified vaccine expert. What Carley didn’t mention is that she had her medical license revoked because, basically, she’s insane.
http://www.quackwatch.com/11Ind/carley1.html
Just goes to show you the caliber of person who supports retarded FDA conspiracy theories. Judging by Trevor’s post, he’s no less deranged than former-doctor Carley.
Trevor, could you please point out one sentence in your post that does NOT contain a spelling or grammar error? I would like to refer you to this article, which has been previously endorsed by a MonaVie distributor:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/07/29/some-people-are-simply-too-selfdeceived-to-know-they-are-ignorant.aspx
The Dunning-Kruger research was fascinating and very relevant to what we’re seeeing here. Unfortunately, the link you posted also contained this obtuse editorial comment from Mercola:
“In many ways this study has great applicability for those who have formal education and choose to completely discount any natural medicine approach in favor of the drug and chemical paradigm.”
In fact, Mercola got this ass backwards. The research suggests that people with advanced degrees (i.e., competent people) were more likely to underestimate their knowledge, while those who were uneducated were more likely to have an unduly inflated sense of their knowledge and to be unaware of their own deficiencies.
Mercola clearly falls in the latter category. No big surprise there though. He’s been demonstrating his incompetence for years.
Trevor,
What is “Monaive”?
I’ve been known to make a few typing errors but come on! How on earth do you expect to make it anywhere in this scam, or attempt to defend the product, if you can’t spell the cult’s name right?!
Go back and find all of the DVD’s, clothing, “tasting” glasses and marketing products that you were duped into spending your money on and take another look…
Reading your post brings back horrible memories of the robotic speech that they teach you guys to give anyone that comes within 5 feet.
I’m just relieved that I found a website in which people like Lazyman and most others posting can set people like you straight.
Trevor, when you enter a conversation logic would tell you that you should get up to speed to the topics covered and get an idea of where the conversation is at so that you can contribute in the most meaningful way possible.
You’ve brought into the conversation nothing by way of additional information to consider, you’ve done absolutely ZERO research outside what Monavie have taught you to parrot, made claims which have already been debunked and most importantly, have obviously failed to do your due diligence.
If you’re pitching this product and opportunity to your family and friends, one would have thought there’d be a compelling need for you to be armed with the most accurate and unbiased information possible.
Had you actually done one iota of research, I doubt you’d have come to the conclusions you have.
It never ceases to astound me that we’re in the position of having to educate Monavie reps on the venture they’re pursuing ““ we refer them to the product information, we refer them to Monavie’s Policies and Procedures, we refer them to the law, we offer information concerning how to identify a pyramid scam, we draw to their lack of attention to the flaws in their own logic and thinking, dissect every argument, blah blah.
Ridiculous!
@Vogel.
Well said and yet more amazing rapid research again with your reply to @Trevor.
Check the link back to the Carley woman’s website ‘http://www.drcarley.com/ from the comment she made.
It is quite a thing ( – the design reminded me of an earlier criticism of Lazy Man’s site), especially the bit lower down where she sticks up and replies to an email from a Peter Bowditch (who is on his own anti-madness agenda).
Then compare and contrast her site to the BPMC’s reasoning behind her medical suspension, and yes, the BPMC are spot on.
Isn’t the web wonderful?
@Vogel.
Oops, I forgot to say that Carley, buried in her CV & BIO links, actually makes a big play that she is not a licensed medical practitioner, and also lists all the media shows on which she’s appeared – the kind of shows which spout any old nonsense as it fills time, freedom of speech allows them to do this, and there’ll be no come-backs anyway.
@Tarin, actually, I think the “misspelling” of Monavie by Trevor was quite Freudian and appropriate…I think it describes the entire distribution force!
I didn’t know where else to post this but check out this comment on Amthrax’s post, apparently Karee Larsen posted this (as I leave and breathe)
http://amthrax.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/dude-let-the-boss-speak/#comment-3592
I seriously had bile in the back of my throat. She even WRITES like a Stepford wife! Did she actually say “a good wife doesn’t need to say much?”. I seriously want to slap the 20th century into her. She talks about the measuring stick being between her and God…yeah, well….my interpretation of the bible is that God doesn’t reward con artists and their idiot wives, even if you pretend to do good with your blood money.
Her website is hysterical. IS there a special html template/font set called “lunatic conspiracy theory website”?
My two favorite quotes were these:
“I have clients all over the world (including Australia), my protocol reverses all autoimmune diseases and cancer, in people and in pets.”
Delusions of grandeur much???
“folks – we are talking TREASON and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, PETS, and even PLANTS”
How does one commit a crime against a plant? She’s a stark raving loon. I’m thankful that her license was revoked.
Really? What a waste of time and energy. Every person has the right to choose if they like Monavie or not. Personally I have lost weight on the RVL product. I have friends who have had amazing results with their health, but what is the point in going into this with you. You are so set in your convictions there is no reason to waste my breath or my energy. I could tell you 100s of stories, show you before and after pictures, show you reasearch I have conducted before I became a distributor and you will not listen. I do not need to see pieces of paper or documentation showing me that Monavie has the approval of companies or people that I do not trust to begin with, but the living breathing people that I have seen with my own eyes, some I have known my whole life, and the life changing things they are undergoing is the only proof I need.
Now as far as arguing with people, I will not do it, Jesus Christ even gives us free will and the right to decide what we believe or don’t. But for those of you that are wondering if this is real? can this change my life? Just ask yourself…. what if it does work? For those of you that are against Monavie or just plain hate us and our product… God Bless you!! We love you and pray for you every single day!!
~Changing lives, one person at a time~
North Carolina (NC),
Thanks NC, I agree with you, I feel bad about the wasted time and energy that is spent promoting MonaVie too. I take solace in the fact that the time spent here convinces a bunch of others to not waste their time. So we are making progress. Thanks for you concern on that front.
You are right that everyone has the right to choose MonaVie or not. Of course that choice should be made with unbiased correct, factual information – which is what is provided here and at Juice Scam. Also the product has to be marketed to people legally. This means that you, as a MonaVie distributor, can’t make a claim as you did when you said, “I have friends who have had amazing results with their health.” Remember that MonaVie and the FTC says that such claims have to “subject to typical results.” Unless these “amazing results” are “typical” of MonaVie, they can’t be claimed. There are no “amazing results” that are “typical” or else they would cease to be amazing, wouldn’t they?
I liked how used those amazing results and then asked, “what is the point in going into this with you.” You may not know, but I’ve already proven MonaVie Medical Testimonies are Pointless.
I would love to see the research that you conducted before you became a distributor. MonaVie has conducted its own research by its own paid scientist (Alex Schauss) and MonaVie still comes up lacking. Independent third party tests have been done to confirm this. Around 8 government agencies show that 4 Ounces of MonaVie is 1 Serving of Fruit and equivalent to about 6 baby carrots.
As for MonaVie helping people, I wake up comments that begin with “So here I am – husbandless!”. It goes on with, “He wanted the business so bad because they cheered him on as he dummped all our money into it. He failed to pay the mortgage and used the money to buy his way up… My husband has sold every bit of what he owns to put money into this. He owes tens of thousands in child support alone, and his debt is in the six figures.”
That’s not a unquantifiable, “amazing result.” That is what real people are facing.
I could tell you 100s of stories of former distributors who have realized that it didn’t help anyone. I’ve had some that said (paraphrased), “No one in my entire downline felt anything. They all admitted it when I showed them the research from my nutritionist. I felt like a heel for deceiving all these people.”
It’s funny, you say that you have witnessed this with 100s of people. Did you know that people drinking non-alcoholic beer will behave drunk if they think they are drinking alcoholic beer? It’s true, just see: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/a0ef3fd8c8/nonalcoholic-keg-prank-of-2002-princeton-from-nickconfalone. There is another example of 150 students from Victoria University in New Zealand: http://inspiredcreativity.deviantart.com/art/Drunk-Without-Alcohol-150366710. This is called the placebo effect. You can look it up.
This is what happens when a bunch of MonaVie people get together talking about MonaVie. They assumed behavior is to talk about the amazing things the juice “does.” Oddly, it happens at Amway meetings with their vitamins (I’ve seen it personally). It happens with every other juice (Xango, Zrii, etc.) where the people profit from these claims. I guess your argument here is that every MLM juice is somehow magical where store juice is not. Or perhaps it is just the combination of placebo and greed.
Did you say that Jesus Christ gives us free will and the right to decide what we believe or don’t. I’ve heard of things credited to him, but I didn’t realize that he gave us free will. It’s been awhile since I’ve been my 9th grade ancient history class, but I’m pretty sure that several civilations before Jesus Christ had free will. My dog would like to thank Jesus for the free will he exercises whenever he sees the chases a squirrel.
I’d like to address your “what it does work?” vague claim. What is “working” juice?!?! It doesn’t provide any medical benefits… and it doesn’t claim to. It doesn’t have much nutrition. See the Men’s Journal article I linked to previously. Or look at the photo of the bottle above to see it almost completely lacking of vitamins, minerals, fiber. At least you’d think it would succeed as a good beverage, but with a serving size of 1 ounce, it fails to quench any kind of thirst. The product doesn’t “work” in so many ways it is ridiculous.
Finally, you really jumbled up your distributor page there. I give you credit for trying as you clear know you must leave your name and ID when posting on blogs. I could help you out with that if you wish.
~MonaVie: causing divorce and bankruptcy, one person at a time~
@North Carolina said;
“Every person has the right to choose if they like Monavie or not.”
Really? I’m sure that you’d agree that, “Every person has the right to choose if they like Heroin or not.”
And of course they do, again, in the same way as everyone has the right to choose if they like jumping off cliffs etc.
The difference is that not everyone has the right to sell heroin as these rights are removed by lawful process.
The point is that LazyMan and others (not just on this website) have proven many times that the Monavie company’s advertising and business ethics are downright dodgy and that sooner or later the law will catch up with it.
And when this point is reached, not everyone will have the right to choose sell Monavie in the way it’s currently sold, even though everyone will have the right to choose to like it.
Am I saying that Monavie will be classed as dangerous as heroin? – Of course not. It’s only fruit juice as Dallin Larsen himself has pointed out.
But selling Monavie by claiming things for it that aren’t true makes it almost as dangerous as Heroin if the purchasers end up bankrupt or are expecting some miracle cure for cancer…. As LazyMan has just said, he’s had tons of folk that have been deceived and suffered in just these ways.
nc writes
“Now as far as arguing with people, I will not do it, Jesus Christ even gives us free will and the right to decide what we believe or don’t. But for those of you that are wondering if this is real? can this change my life? Just ask yourself…. what if it does work? For those of you that are against Monavie or just plain hate us and our product… God Bless you!! We love you and pray for you every single day!!”
You ask people to take the “what if it really does do miracles” approach to buying your product. Why dont you buy my 200K mile jeep for $125,000??? it might make you live forever, cure herpes, and make flowers shoot out of your ass. I dont care what any so called experts say about it, its awesome and believe you me i should have contracted herpes in the back of that thing 20 times over, but never have. No previous owners of this jeep have died and i have witnessed this with my own eyes (of course im the only owner). the real question is: can you really risk NOT buying my jeep?
you are a piece of trash. trying to use religion as a means to scam people is beyond reprehensible. does your religion say its fine to deceive people for profit???? You completely dismiss all credible science that shows you are full of shit. you follow this up with the statement that you are christian and wont argue…this only helps you not confront the fact that you are full of shit. Real scientists, real doctors, and government agencies all show that monavie is no better than juice 1/10th its price. In today’s internet connected world MLM marketing is almost exclusively the home of hucksters and low life scam artists such as yourself. Since i’ve got the divine gifted ability to believe what a want, i believe you suck. I BELIEVE it is not a waste of my time to try to let people know that people like you are out to deceive them out of their hard earned money.
Lattimore, I always look forward to your comments with the combination of humor and logic that is unmatched. I had meant to mention the problem with the “Try MonaVie” argument, which is essentially what it is when they say, “what if it works?”
I added a section about how people tricked into drinking “fake” alcohol acted drunk: MonaVie and the Placebo Effect. They were amazed to find out that they weren’t drinking alcohol as they reported feeling drunk. This directly explains the experiences in testimonials (at least the ones that aren’t out and out lies to profit from selling juice) especially since there’s no scientific evidence that MonaVie would do anything.
I remember seeing a study along those lines on one of those investigative reporting TV shows years back. They took a bunch of college students to a bar (all of legal age of course) and bought them several pitchers or non-alcoholic beer. They didn’t tell them that it was non-alcoholic, but by the end of the night the entire group was whooping it up and acting drunk. Of course they all sobered up quickly when informed that they had in fact been drinking non-alcoholic beer. It was an interesting case-study on the placebo effect for sure.
@north carolina. Stop. Just stop. The 100’s of stories are B.S. that you heard at the last R3Global “convention” where they parade people up for their “stories” and that is just what they are…stories! Do they cry and say “I have been HEEEALED by Monavie”?? Ugh, thinking about it makes my skin crawl.
You do get that you are coming on here and “arguing” even though you say it is not worth it, right? Except, here is the kicker, you come on here ARGUING but with NO EVIDENCE to back up your arguments but your own little “I lost weight with RVL”. Let me tell you something honey, with the weight loss plan provided I could substitute vitamins and a chocolate bar for the Reveal and lose weight. All you are doing is reducing your calories (and not in a healthy way) and increasing your level of activity.
Then you say “But for those of you that are wondering if this is real? can this change my life? Just ask yourself – . what if it does work?” That is like asking yourself if religion works, it does if you want it to, if you believe. I am one of the people that Lazy Man is referring to regarding having tried the product and been involved with the company. The juice did nothing for the people that I signed up and my downline dropped like flies. That is how much it “worked”. I felt NOTHING from the juice but had been convinced that it had amazing nutritional benefits so blindy went on drinking and promoting it. So that destroys your argument about it working, right? Because I argued that I tried it and it DOESN’T work. No? Not enough for you? Ah, well, that is easy to remedy because I have scientific data to back that up…even from your own “doctor” on staff there! Weird, right? See how arguing works now?
You say that every one has the right to choose, that free will is available to us all. I wholeheartedly disagree with your assertion when it comes to this company. Here is the definition of free will;
“The question of free will is the philosophical question whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions, decisions, or choices”.
There is not one single distributor who is condsidered a rational agent once they have been absorbed into the Monavie mindset. Free will presupposes that one has the truth, on either side of the equation, and their choice is based on those truths. Since they get absolutely NO TRUTH from the Monavie executives (which is why they tell you to avoid the internet or any “negative” press about Monavie)this is called MANIPULATION, not FREE WILL. If Dallin Larsen & Brig Hart really believed in choice and free will, they would not be hiding the truth about their products from everyone.
Then you say something as inane as ” For those of you that are against Monavie or just plain hate us and our product – God Bless you!! We love you and pray for you every single day!!” Could you see the PR person for Nike or Tropicana Juice using this as their sales pitch? They wouldn’t have one customer left!! Christian or non!!! Do you understand how you are turning this into a religious sermon and not a valid argument for not hating the company? It is so offensive and many TRUE Christians have come on this site and said as much.
I don’t hate you. I save my hatred for the child rapists like Lou Niles and the homicidal maniac that threatens to kill people for not believing in Monavie (Glenn Seisser) who represent your company, but you, you I just feel incredibly sorry for. First of all, your prayers do me no good as I don’t believe in your God (see how I invoked my Free Will there?) and secondly, you will need to save all of your prayers & forgiveness for yourself . You will need them when it finally hits you that you are involved in a company that is depriving people of their parents, their homes and their freedom, you sanctimonious piece of sh…sorry, LM I know that I am not supposed to be rude….but seriously, some people bring out the worst in me!
I haven’t read a lot of the comments, though I agree about the lack of science behind the product. One thing that may or may not have been covered here is the deception of the income disclosure statement. Most of the income levels are achieved by less than one percent of those reaching those ranks. what they Wont tell anyone is what the other 99% of those that have hit ranks are making.
They make a huge deal of prancing folks across a stage after achieving say a “ruby” rank, making everyone think they have achieved a 100k a year income, when in fact in most cases, a “ruby” might be lucky to hit 500 bucks a week for a short period”! It’s total deception and dishonesty! Monavie WILL NOT tell you what those working the business for one or two years are averaging in income.
The reality is that it’s virtually impossible to make the “average” income as so falsely stated on the income disclosure statement. This is a fact. I know from first hand experience from someone close who became one of the top distributors in a state and achieved emerald level, but was not making nearly the income that the crowds thought he was making…. Funny that that was never discussed at meetings and events. Monavie is wrought with deception, not only about the product, but about what is realistically obtainable by the average person. Plus, it’s a fact that the business is built by signing up distributors who buy the product, rather than consumers who buy it. Plus, they will not discuss the attrition rate of distributors and drinkers, which is extremely high. It is also extremely disturbing how they mix religion, “helping others” and “changing people ‘s lives” in their hype. It’s a shame that good folks get brain washed and sucked in to false hope. the TRUTH needs to be told.
Trevor,
You said “Monavie does not cost anything once you’re in the business and you expand and go forward with it. The Juice Pays for itself.”
Well let me give you the list of charges my ex made on his credit card during ONE of the earlier months of starting up his “business”…
01/25 R3 Global LLC $454.65
02/03 Mona Vie 249.20
02/04 Mona Vie 1039.77
02/15 Mona Vie 265.76
Nice… $2009.38 he gave them over a period of 3 weeks. He probably took home about $10.00.
How is this a good business investment and how does it promote health and wellness when you gave them so much money you can’t pay your mortgage.
Hopefully those figures can be a wake up call to any of the pro-Monavier’s out there.
It’s a scam, plain and simple.
I recently became aware of the Monavie product from a church administrator. I don’t personally use the Monavie juice so I will not comment on it. I am very familiar with some of their other products though. I am a Christian and will be totally honest in saying that I have lost 35 pounds using the meal replacement plan, RVL, from Monavie in less than 3 mos. I still go to the gym only once or twice a week as I did before. I am only telling others of this product not for cash and prizes but I want them to be able to share in my joy of losing unwanted weight. Nothing I say will change your mind I’m sure and that is ok. I come bearing no scientific data just my own testimony that it worked wonders for me personally. Overweight people do have an option now that has proven itself to me and others.
People should always use common sense in spending money on business ventures. Tarin’s ex’s spending spree is pretty ridiculous, I agree. If you can’t afford something you shouldn’t buy it. I personally have a trusting relationship w/ my wife and we don’t make large purchases w/o consulting eachother. In becoming a Monavie distributor I have not been pressured to buy any products that I do not want. Actually, when I tried the juice and did not like it, my sponsor bought it back from me. The Monavie organization I have experienced is full of people helping people try to better their lives. As for the price, I see people spend more on coffee daily than I spend daily on RVL.
Jeff, it seems that as a distributor you are telling others for cash or prizes.
I’m not going to say that people can’t lose weight on RVL. People lose weight on all sorts of stuff. People lose weight on a cabbage diet or a cookie diet.
When you look at RVL, it isn’t anything new or different that what has been on the market for years. I just looked at the shake mix and it doesn’t seem too different from Carnation Instant Breakfast plus half a scoop of whey protein. I hope they aren’t charging more than 60 cents a serving of it. I haven’t had the time to look into the costs in full detail though.
Jeff said, “If you can’t afford something you shouldn’t buy it.” That’s great advice. However, people don’t heed this advice. That’s why I write this personal finance site. You should watch the Suze Orman show and see all the things that people buy that they can’t afford. Furthermore, it is extremely difficult to know what you can and can not afford. M.C. Hammer could afford a lot of great cars until he was bankrupt. I know a lot of people who thought they could afford things in 2000 due to the growth of technology stocks, just to watch their jobs disappear when the internet bubble collapsed. So it’s great to give that advice, but let’s be practical here… there’s a lot of people with credit card debt and a lot of people with underfunded retirement accounts. The juice alone (not adding in the costs of RVL) is $5000 a year for a family of four. That’s quite a high number for people to afford. Plus, we’ve found out time and time again, that this isn’t being marketed to people who are desperate and have lost their jobs. It is being marketed to people who can’t afford it.
As for the spending money on coffee per day argument, I’ve responded to it so many times in the 5000+ comments here, that I just went ahead and wrote an article on it. See http://www.juicescam.com/monavie-vs-starbucks/.
Jeff, You said “The Monavie organization I have experienced is full of people helping people try to better their lives.”
In my own personal experience they DO say that but their main focus is on getting people to SELL for them. It’s all about making money at someone else’s expense. Everyone wants to be healthy and live a better lifestyle so that would appeal to a lot of people, but that’s not what their about. If they were so concerned about “helping people” they wouldn’t be trying to steal money from them.
Also, my posting of his credit card expenses does not include money he spent on travel, having flyers printed for “tastings” (and embarrassed me by sticking them in our neighbors mailboxes) and time off from work to attend those “absolutely necessary” training seminars.
It’s great that you and your wife have a trusting relationship. I thought I did too until I decided to open the credit card statement before he did.
I agree with Lazyman in his statement that as a distributor you are telling others for cash or prizes.
It’s all about the money for them. Trust me, they don’t really care about “helping people”.
Jeff Richter. The problem with your theory is that Monavie Corporate encourages a person to buy EVERYTHING from the energy juice to the shorts to movtivational CDs/books and says this is the only way to become successful. People are brainwashed to believe that the more they spend now, the more they will make later. Most of the people trying to succeed in this business DON’T have the money and are maxing out their credit cards because they believe it will come back in spades. They are humiliated into buying the clothes so they can all dress the same for conventions, they are told that they have to set an example for their downline by drinking all of the products etc.
If you really want to help people lose weight, you will give them cheaper and far more nutritional options. Helping people without financial gain is the goal that you should be trying to achieve in your life, if you REALLY want to help people. I can assure you, not ONE SINGLE person high up in Monavie is interested in “helping” people without first having that person signed up as a distributor under them. Tell them you found a cheaper & healthier way to lose weight and you will quickly find out how loving and helpful these people are.
BTW, being agnostic, I weary of you people stating that you are Christian so we should believe your statements. We have some Christians who have posted on here (some of them having been involved and others not) and are ashamed of the “Christians” that run this company and TEAM. Which of you are better Christians? I will go with the ones NOT supporting a pyramid scheme, even if you think that you are not doing any harm, by buying/selling these products you ARE supporting this scheme.
@Tarin, that is horrible but I am sure not uncommon! I feel like I escaped relatively unscathed having only lost a few thousand dollars.
I was just noticing that the rate of people posting on here has slowed down. Is it me or has anyone else noticed? I like to believe that all our hard work has discouraged future distributors from joining MV.
Humiliated,
It was really bad. The sad thing is there was so much more money lost that I didn’t even know about. That credit card statement is the only one I opened when I finally felt that something was really wrong. I literally cried when I saw that.
I’m glad you got out in time but it’s unfortunate you lost thousands. What a bunch of leaches they are…
I just saw this picture of new Monavie distributor, “yoga-guy” Nick Clarke –
http://nickclarkhealth.com/?page_id=10045
– and it made me laugh so hard thinking about the similarity to goji-berry loving “Ogden the Inappropriate Yoga Guy”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lBoJpx8Wn8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtWcb0bcA-A
I wonder if Nick realizes that he’s living the life of a caricature.
LM,
I have tried several meal replacement products on the market in years past. I did not get anywhere near the results I achieved with RVL, MV’s meal replacement plan. I have lost 34 lbs in ten weeks. (so far) I have gone from a 50″ waist to wearing 44″ jeans I haven’t worn in years. Now I know variables and factors differ case by case but I have seen several people get very similar results from this product in my area. I noticed several comments about the “success stories” and the before/after photos. I have read on Monavie’s websites that as a joke several of the top exec’s pictures have been altered using photoshop. Personally I don’t think that was a great idea simply because most people don’t bother to read anything that isn’t in a bubble but I don’t know them nor can attest to their humor capacity. I can also agree that some of the weight loss is exaggerated. As for being clothed in their pic to hide results… Come on, its hard enough on some people’s psyche to be fat much less shirtless and shameless. I can vouch for many in my area though that their weight loss is real.
Now losing weight is hard under normal circumstances but I lost mine during the holiday season. Cookies, cakes, platters of cheese and meats are daily visuals in my business. Yet with the help of RVL and nothing else I lost this weight. I did not even go to the gym during the month of Dec. Now you can say what you want but I like those kind of results. Now I may have a distributor number (310.3680) but I am a consumer first and foremost.
I just don’t see those kind of tactics being preached to new distributors where I’m at. I don’t know what practices happen elsewhere but the experiences I have had w/ the NC chapter of Monavie has been nothing like you people have described. No cultish activity. No rote speeches to memorize. No pressure to perform ie. recruit. Just suggestions. Going on my third month w/o making rank and nothing but a few follow up calls to see if I needed any help or questions answered. I am impressed w/ the results I am getting from RVL.
I am glad I came across your site. I am now much more informed about the company that provides me product. I have noticed a majority of the pro-Monavie posts listed on your site do nothing to help promote Monavie. They seem to help prove your point with the false claims made, acting like pompous jerks (MFM) and showing their dire need of a dictionary. I tried a bottle of Active, I came to my own conclusions about the juice and have decided not to use it. My sponsor did actually buy the case back from me. I have noticed very little mention of RVL, MV’s meal replacement plan, in your posts. I look forward to seeing your findings when you look into RVL.
Jeff,
I’m sorry, but it’s hard to take your weight loss claims seriously. What is your evidence other than pointless testimony? I could say that I’ve been on RVL and I gained 30 pounds and I’ve seen a bunch of others do it as well. We have a company with a known history of lying and scamming people (you can see a lot more of it at http://www.juicescam.com/). You have a bunch of distributors with the same infamous history. Then you have the company and the distributors entering a field (weight-loss) well known for it’s scams. Add to that the crackdown of the FTC on acai weight-loss products – http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/08/acaicolon.shtm.
The burden is on you to show what is different. What is in this product that helps you lose weight that wasn’t in the other products? What makes your area in NC the nexus for the few honest MonaVie distributors?
My posts mostly pre-date the roll-out of the RVL line. I’ve been pretty busy with writing new posts for this website (remember that Lazy Man and Money is not about MonaVie) as well as a dozen other websites that I manage. Honestly, I don’t see anything worth mentioning about RVL. I looked at the product at it is very expensive for the number of calories. I didn’t see anything that differentiated it from other products on the market.
The shake appears to be your garden variety whey protein that you can find almost anywhere… except that is has controversial and “deceptive” fake fiber like polydextrose added (see the article for the reason why I put “deceptive” in quotes. That covers the first few ingredients until you get to the sunflower oil creamer which has more chemicals than you can shake a stick at as well as maltodextrin which was also mentioned in the aforementioned fake fiber article. The next ingredient is organic cane sugar… nothing like adding sugar to a product to help you lose weight.
As for the dietary supplement, it is more or less chromium and green tea. Pick those up anywhere. The “fruit” powder blend is only 120mg, essentially the size of 1.5 baby aspirins. This is not an amount of fruit that will impact anything. I haven’t studied black pepper extract, but I hope that is somehow very different than what I have on kitchen table, right? The other ingredients list silica which sounds like those packets that warn me not to eat them when I buy electronics. Am I wrong there?
The nutrition bar doesn’t look much different than the South Beach Bars – http://www.amazon.com/South-Beach-Living-Protein-5-Count/dp/B001G7RBMG. See the first review for nutritional information to compare. They are about $1 a bar on Amazon (not really known for it’s great prices on food), but about 30 cents a bar at my military commissary. I know not everyone has access to the military deals I have, but I would hope that MonaVie is pricing those bars are well under a $1 a piece.
Perhaps you should break down which MonaVie RVL products (shake, supplement, snack bar) you are using and how you are using them.
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/08/acaicolon.shtm
I mean MonaVie is associated with weight
Jeff, I think the bottom line is that you will find that there are “diet” plans that work for different people for different reasons. For people distributing Monavie I think that financial motivation is a huge (no pun intented) factor. It certainly helps sell the product to others if you aren’t borderline obese yourself.
While it is not healthy to carry around a lot of extra weight, it is also not healthy to cram all of this fake food down one’s gullet either. I have yet to see anyone that I know maintain weight loss with any of these “instant food” programs. Yes, some of them initially lose the weight because they have drastically reduced their calorie intake, but they find it impossible to maintain long term. They gain it back…plus some.
Someone I know is doing the ‘weight watchers’ program and they told me that they have recently changed their plan to include almost virtually ALL fruits and vegetables (except corn & peas) as “no points” because they want to teach people to make the right choices, plus they will fill up on the REAL fiber. They are moving away from processed food because long term it is not effective in maintaining weight loss. Teach a man to fish….
Shop the perimeter of the grocery store (“real” food), avoid insulin spiking foods (takes a little research), and increase your exercise just a little each day. Figure out why you got to where you are in the first place. There is no quick fix and my heart really goes out to the people that spend their money on this product hoping that this will change their life. I know that some people are really desperate to lose weight but this is not the way to do it and keep it off, putting aside the sketchy reputation of Monavie LLC.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2011-02-07-multilevelmarketing03_CV_N.htm
Just an article I read regarding Amway on the front page of USA TODAY 2/7/11. I can’t wait until an article like this comes out on Monavie. Same great business ethics lol.
Well, you can’t expect USA Today to equal the great reporting that you’d find at Lazy Man and Money two years ago, right ;-)?
Vogul and fellow monavie haters! I am living the role of Ogden the Yoga Dude! That is awesome! It is tough being a 28 year old yoga teacher at the hottest spot in town? Working around beautiful and charismatic people all day!!
You might try it! And you might try working MonaVie along the way, because this business does work. Unfortunately hardly any of the people who have approached you or tried to train you don’t know how to build a sustainable business, especially if you do not have a sphere of influence. I am 28 years old, from Colorado and living in California. I have been here for 3 years, I didn’t know a soul. I know how to take someone from zero to hero doing only what you love and nothing else!
I could tell you, but it seems a good portion of you are still in the dark. Who knows?
You can build a business and improve your health with MonaVie!
I have been representing the product for 3 and a half years and am the second largest business owner in the area! I will be the biggest in time, so keep your eyes peeled, but don’t wake up tomorrow and expect it done!
Peace OGDEN Lovers. Nick
Nick, perhaps you missed that Lazy Man and Money is a sustainable business with a larger sphere of influence than yours (hey 1.8 Million visitors can’t be wrong).
Only 99.64% of people make their money back with MonaVie. It’s like saying that you can win the lottery. It’s possible, but so extremely unlikely, you are better off not thinking about it. Secondly, it’s been well proven that MonaVie does not improve your health – well not significantly. 4 ounces is the equivalent of 6 baby carrots.
Nick Clark said: “Vogul (sic) and fellow monavie haters! – you might try working MonaVie along the way, because this business does work. Unfortunately hardly any of the people who have approached you or tried to train you don’t know how to build a sustainable business, especially if you do not have a sphere of influence – I know how to take someone from zero to hero doing only what you love and nothing else!”
Nick (distributor ID# 938965), rather than calling people haters and bragging about your so-called “business” success, you should be explaining why you are illegally marketing Monavie on your website, using claims such as the following:
“Do You have achy joints and muscles? Looking to recover quickly after a workout? — Mona-Vie Active – Naturally Lower Your Cholesterol — Mona-Vie Pulse – Do you or your kids get sick all of the time? Immune deficiency disease? — MonaVie M(Mun)”
http://nickclarkhealth.com/?page_id=10045
WTF dude?!? Have you lost your mind? You are not authorized to market Monavie as a remedy for immune deficiency disease, or for lowering cholesterol, or for reducing joint pain. And preying on children???? WTF is the matter with you boy??? You know that you aren’t allowed to do this and yet you do it anyway. This is neither heroic nor sustainable. You should stick to what you know best (undersized gym shorts, bandanas, downward dogs, and harassing women in your yoga class) and leave medicine to those who are trained and authorized. Pathetic liar!
A 14 year old girl asking if Monavie will help with weight loss
http://www.weightlossquestions.org/2011/02/09/will-monavie-help-with-weightloss/
It’s disgusting that they even have kids curious about such a thing.
HAHA! Apparently you have nothing better to do with your time than bitch and moan, probably why you are one of the 99% who failed or will fail in ANY business that you attempt.
MonaVie and I are in compliance. In fact, MonaVie Pulse is certified by the FDA, the only non drug product in the world, to say that it can and will naturally lower your cholesterol. The 2 billion dollar product called Wellmune, which is only in MonaVie has significant research in the reduction of immune diseases, the glucosamine in MonaVie is the strongest in the world, it can and will reduce joint pain, and the RVL product has helped thousands of people loose weight in only 4 months of being on the line. Not that you haven’t heard all of this before. I know you have.
I love how you keep posting my site, please keep doing it. The reason this blog has so many followers in because there are people, probably like yourself, that either have a bad taste in their mouth, represent another company, or can’t admit that they never took the time to learn how to properly run a business! Enjoy sulking buddy! Maybe you should try yoga, bet you haven’t had a date that looks like anything special for a long time!
Lazy man obviously has his name for a reason, so I won’t comment on his. Winning the lottery? Really man, this is like any business, it takes work, lazy man need not apply!
Try finding something in your life to be positive about and quit sharing hate. If you want better health, then obviously you need more than a product!
Peace!
Nick Clark you are an ass! I was sponsored AND helped by 4 Black Diamonds, 1 Hawaiian Blue Diamond and another Blue Diamond. I did everything they said to do and all it left me was a $4000 bill at the end of 10 months of working the system like they said.
And now, all but ONE Black Diamond is even IN MonaVie any longer! They have ALL lost their downlines.
Idiot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nick Clark said: “HAHA! Apparently you have nothing better to do with your time than bitch and moan, probably why you are one of the 99% who failed or will fail in ANY business that you attempt.”
A baseless ad hominem attack and a lecture on failure from a snakeoil-peddling second-rate yoga wannabe. ROFL! The irony!
Nick Clark said: “MonaVie and I are in compliance. [FALSE!] In fact, MonaVie Pulse is certified by the FDA [FALSE!] the only non drug product in the world, to say that it can and will naturally lower your cholesterol [and FALSE!]. The 2 billion dollar product [FALSE]called Wellmune, which is only in MonaVie has significant research in the reduction of immune diseases, [ITS NOT APPROVED TO REDUCE IMMUNE OR ANY OTHER DISEASE]the glucosamine in MonaVie is the strongest in the world [FALSE!], it can and will reduce joint pain [FALSE] – I love how you keep posting my site, please keep doing it.” [I HAVE NEVER POSTED ON YOUR JOKE OF A WEBSITE NOR DO I INTEND TO]
You really need to read up on your compliance manual. You are nowhere close to being compliant and your claims are in direct violation of US law and the terms of your distributor agreement.
Nick Clark said: “The reason this blog has so many followers in because there are people, probably like yourself, that either have a bad taste in their mouth, represent another company, or can’t admit that they never took the time to learn how to properly run a business!”
A foolish and baseless theory. I don’t generally take advice on “how to properly run a business” from some effeminate snakeoil peddler in shorty-shorts and a headband. Any bad taste in mouth resulted from witnessing the scandalous and illegal methods by which you and your ilk market this F-tarded fruit punch.
Nick Clark said: “bet you haven’t had a date that looks like anything special for a long time!”
Oooh snaps Odgen! You sure showed us Playboy. So let me see if I’m reading you correctly. You are denigrating people here on the basis that you think you get hotter dates? You’re truly pathetic (and no doubt dateless too). BTW, trying to grope women in yoga class doesn’t really qualify as a “date”.
Nick Clark said: “Really man, this is like any business, it takes work, lazy man need not apply!”
Yeah, you must bust quite a sweat telling all those lies about miraculous disease cures. F-ing idiot!
Nick Clark said: “Try finding something in your life to be positive about and quit sharing hate.”
I’ll try but it’s hard to get past my hatred for bandana-clad yoga douchebags who illegally sell fruit punch as a disease remedy to sick people
Did you ever think that you were not on the same level as the black diamonds? In order to build this business you need a sphere of influence. This is where any network marketing company goes wrong. They have people with enormous spheres of influence and experience in network marketing come in and build a big business really fast. Then they tell people that they can make the money just as fast, that it is an equal opportunity, when in fact there is not an equal opportunity from the start. Believe me, I was sponsored by a Royal Black Diamond who never gave me any assistance, I initially learned from the CD’s and stuff, but ultimately lost friends and family because of the constant badgering. Only difference with me than a lot of people is that I kept going and found a different way to build the business without being forceful. I understand your frustration man, but there is a way to build this business with patience and a leader who is doing it with you at the same time. Black Diamonds don’t have to do shit, they travel the globe and talk about how awesome they are, but rarely speak about what it took and the time it took to get there.
Your point is well received. And know it is not your fault, but no one ever has told you how to do it for who you are and who you know.
@ Nick, the yoga master…I hope you’re preparing your wallet to be as flexible as your body purportedly is, because sooner than you think, the alleged profits you are claiming to have will dry up and blow away. And that you can bank on.
People like Nick Clark drive me insane. I run a business. It’s not huge but I make enough to cover the bills and it’s growing. How many Monavie distruburs can say that? According to the IDS which hasn’t been updated since mid 2009 not many.
I didn’t learn crap about running a business from Monavie. Mostly because when you’re an IBO you don’t actually run a business. You have sales job. A company pays you commission at the end of the week depending on how much product you move. That’s it.
Saying that the people who lost thousands of dollars trying to make Monavie work just never took the time to learn how to run a business is a huge insult. People spend even more money on tools than actual product. Calling it a business, dressing up in a suit, and putting your name on a business card is all part of the facade. It’s ego stroking so that more people spend money on tools.
Monavie isn’t a business. It’s a sick institution designed to scam as many people as possible while pushing false health claims.
Nick – Your comments are worthless to me because you are NOT a Black Diamond and I bet you are a STAR 1000 to boot!
Because you have had such great experiences with Black Diamonds. Do your research and you will figure out what rank I am. I don’t wear a suit, infact, someone made it clear earlier, I wear short shorts and a bandana to work. All business is the same, you work hard and you will be rewarded. To Candace; it’s better to have good friends than money, because wherever you go they will go and money will follow. Good luck with your constant negative posts, I like the attention, my site has had 5200 hits today! peace!
P.S. Lazy Man! I applaud your site and understand how you make money. I know it isn’t about the MonaVie, it is about driving traffic to your site, so that people will click on your little adds and you will get a commission. You do a good job with finding controversial topics to stir up conversation and I am sure you make your money! Good blogging. I do feel like the real negative slang might take away a little from your credibility however, I am not all people and it is entertaining. I did enjoying the article on buying a vacation home, with the noted, completely unrelated materials.
Very interesting to see how you try to deflect attention away from the fact that you are ruthlessly and illegally marketing Monavie as a disease remedy. How about taking some personal responsibility instead of acting like such a colossal dick?
Nick said: but no one ever has told you how to do it for who you are and who you know.
BS! I worked with all of these top distributors one on one and they knew my situation perfectly. They invested many hours if not months with me helping me grow my business. I have influence. In fact I know CEOs in some large companies in Miami and non of that helped. I almost tanked my relationships with them because of MonaVie. One of these Diamonds paid $5000 for me to go to Hilton Johnson’s year long direct marketing school. That did help … some …. but even with all that information and getting out there and creating relationships and walking clubs etc… I couldn’t even sponsor ONE person! So now you know that even with all the help from the “Gods above” in MV, it didn’t make a bit of difference. In the end, they lost all their downlines too and jumped ship.
The point is the Diamonds couldn’t do anything to help me because the system and product is flawed.
Nick: Who is the Black Diamond or Royal above you? That is the only way I can find out your rank since you are afraid to disclose it.
I just did a cursory look on Google for your name to be found anywhere on Monavie’s rank advancements or on Brig Hart’s downline and you don’t even exist!
Where are u?
Darrell Utterbach, he has since passed away, but his wife tracy holds the business. I am not saying they didn’t train you, I just feel like they train people wrong. They had you make a list and approach everyone you knew….bla….bla…bla. Right? I did the same thing. Unfortunately not all of your current friends and family want to do what you want to do, this is where I teach people on creating long term relationships, built off of trust so that you can find people who are actually looking. They come to me, because the trust me. I don’t sell them, they sell themselves. I have sponsored 80 some odd people, but the first 40 people were not people who were looking, they were friends, or family or whatever that wanted to support me. So, what happened, they quit drinking the juice and quit trying to distribute it because they didn’t really want to do it in the first place. Make sense?
Anyway, just saying there is a way to make it work and big diamonds are paid to teach what they think are the basics, but are really the basic way to frustrate the shit out of people to the point that they quit. The big diamonds are paid by Brig and other systems to tell people the same stuff over and over, which for most of us doesn’t work.
Believe me, I have had my fair share of disappointment and discouragement, but I have a way that works for me now and it will be very sustainable for my future.
Good post.
Nick
Nick: It’s as if you are not listening. I never said Darrell trained me. Nor did you take notice that the Black Diamonds trained me with Hilton Johnson.
Nick, You said “Unfortunately not all of your current friends and family want to do what you want to do, this is where I teach people on creating long term relationships, built off of trust so that you can find people who are actually looking. They come to me, because the trust me. I don’t sell them, they sell themselves.”
You sound like the most horrifying friend (if that’s what you want to call it) in that you con people into building up their trust for your own monetary gain.
BTW, I did look at your website. Seriously? I couldn’t stop laughing… You actually posted a picture of yourself with the stupid Monavie bus that they love to park outside of their “seminars”. Did you also get a great shot of you with the other toys they bring along too? The motorcycle and corvette? Pictures to share with your friends and potential victims? I’m sorry but that’s something a 14 year old would do and you’re actually proud of it.
You’re an embarrassment and the sad thing is you don’t even know it.
Ogden (aka Nick) said: “this is where I teach people on creating long term relationships, built off of trust so that you can find people who are actually looking. They come to me, because the trust me.”
And you abuse that trust by illegally selling them crap fruit punch as a disease cure. Need I say more? What an exploitive a-hole!
Odgen (aka Nick) said: “Believe me, I have had my fair share of disappointment and discouragement”
You don’t need to try to convince us. Your failure is self evident, juice clown…yoga boy.
Love it! Keep it coming. Darrell is my sponsor, you asked!
Love Odgen! aka Nick
Off to drink my fruit punch!
Nick,
Maybe YOU should “keep it coming”. You’re providing everyone with a great example of what a moronic organization Monavie really is. If you feel your a respectable representative of a “company” then there’s something wrong with you.
Lazy Man, Maybe the juice really does do something. It’s rotted Nick’s brain.
Nick Clark states â??MonaVie and I are in compliance.â??
Nick, you’re obliged to conduct yourself in accordance with Monavie’s company Policies and Procedures which you agreed to when chose to become a representative of the company and which states:
2.1.6. I will be truthful in my representation of MonaVie Products and make no claims regarding the health benefits of MonaVie Products that violate the law.
2.3.8. Unethical Activity. You agree to be ethical and professional at all times when conducting your MonaVie Distributorship…Examples of unethical activities include, but are not limited to the following, some of which are further described in these P&Ps:
2.3.8.1. Making unapproved claims about the Product;
4.1.1 Product Claims. You may make claims about the Products that are in the Official MonaVie Materials of the country for which it is approved. You shall not make claims about the Product that are not in the Official MonaVie Materials.
https://www.monavievo.com/corporate/documents/P&Ps_Global%20Version_US020810_0.pdf
Monavieâ??s own website confirms that Monavie, nor any of itâ??s ingredients, does not treat, cure or mitigate the symptoms of any disease and condition and that you’re NOT allowed to use terms or phrases that suggest same.
http://monavieuniversity.zaah.net/?s=fruit+juice+products
The claims you’ve made are all CLEARLY in breach of company policy. Furthermore, nowhere will you see written that Monavie has FDA approval – because it doesn’t. You’re both breaching company policy by making such unapproved claims about the product and breaking the law (namely, the FTC guidelines, as well as FDA regulations).
You’d best brush up on Monavie’s Guide to Social Media instead of continuing to make such unapproved and unlawful claims – the law states both you and the company are liable for these and anyone who you signed up on the basis of such claims could easily argue being misled and defrauded.
http://media.monavie.com/pdf/us/socialmediapolicy.pdf
What’s truly sad about your situation is that you’ve been promoting the product for 3 years now, have admitted to exploiting personal relationships in pursuit of the opportunity, continued to pursue this to the detriment of your relationships, confirmed that there’s no demand for your fruit punch outside the opportunity (which no doubt many of those you recruited soon realised didn’t exist), obviously haven’t achieved a ranking of any significance (because there’s no doubt if you had, you’d have let us know) and that you’re STILL trying to figure out a way to make the system work for you – despite the fact that you’re in all likelihood one of the 99.64% of the sales force that are losing.
If you weren’t such an arrogant ignoramus and an obviously ruthless pyramid huckster, I’d actually feel bad that Monavie were capitalising on your stupidity.
You idiot!
Nick,
Your lack of qualifications for giving nutritional advice is laughable and glaringly evident in your article, “Why Supplements Are Important”. It is chock full of vacuous statements like “we need good health or we won’t be living long at all”, “health is vital for a good life”, and “full bodily functions of the organs are also vital to our health” It reads like a report done by a fifth grader that needed to pad out an essay in order to reach the assigned number of words. Then there is all that hackneyed MV misinformation confidently stated as fact: “Our lack of proper nutrition stems from a depletion of agricultural soil” and “Organic fruits and veggies are generally better in nutrients than conventionally grown foods”. Really? Did your upline teach you to say that?
I also question, from a historical perspective, your claim that we are more stressed and more deficient in vitamins and minerals. Do you have some sources for this?
After reading this, I could only wonder how you can believe what you write and then propose a non-organic fruit juice made from depleted soil grown fruit as a viable supplement. It does not follow.
Stick to yoga, it has proven benefits.
You can’t learn yoga from someone whose chakras and karma are so badly polluted. It’s bad mojo.
Having practiced yoga myself for many years, I would be disgusted if any of my yoga teachers tried to sell me on a MLM pseudo health product. The essence of yoga is the study of the mind/body connection and to learn to rise above the need for material goods and ego. What you practice in your life is the anti-thesis of this philosophy Nick. Does the studio that you work for know that you are luring practitioners of yoga into a pyramid scheme for your own selfish gain? I am fairly certain that is works something like this, they take a class, you tell them how fabulous they looked, you befriend them and eventually lead them to your website. Is that correct? People really should be reporting you and the true nature of Monavie to the owners of the studio, I would.
Please don’t try to back track out of this saying your are doing something for the greater good by selling your worthless fruit punch. You came on here bragging about how you will soon be the biggest business owner in your area and that is clearly your main focus…to have as many toys and material wealth as you can before you die. That is evident by your photo standing by the Monavie Bus as well.
I also found something that you said very curious. You state :
“but the first 40 people were not people who were looking, they were friends, or family or whatever that wanted to support me. So, what happened, they quit drinking the juice and quit trying to distribute it because they didn’t really want to do it in the first place”.
It appears to me that your friends and family were not getting the promised health benefits otherwise, why would the not just continue to “drink” the juice but not actively sell it? They got smart and realized that it was just over priced juice and they could find much cheaper and healthier alternatives. It is clear from the above quoted statement that you are not interested in improving people’s health, but only in making money in this pyramid scheme.
BTW, your whole over the top, shameless & almost hysterical self promotion is not suited to the yoga tradition. You really should go into Tae-Bo or Zumba or something where you won’t stand out like a sore thumb.
The hits on your website are probably people preparing to report you to the FTC and/or FDA so I wouldn’t be so cocky about it, my friend.
I agree with Vogel, you are bringing a lot of bad karma into your life.
Namaste
Tae-Bo…snicker…I was thinking “Dancing with the Oldies” or “Foxy Boxing”, but Tae Bo is even better.
Yet another criminal/blasphemous conman in the ranks of Monavie.
http://www.theday.com/article/20110206/NWS01/302069932/1070/FRONTPAGE
Yay Vogel.
I felt positively queasy after reading that report.
The key phrases from the report about Calo are at the top where his evangelising tool is called:
“Inc.” indeed!
And the comments from previously unacquainted victims of Calo like:
When reading about the thousands of dollars that this creep has sucked out of people, one wonders how any MV-er can honestly claim the crap that they all do.
While this guy’s actions should in no way imply that all MV-ers are tarred with the same brush, the number of times that we see religious crookery and MLM-ing tied to an earlier life of serial double-dealing for one MV-er after another lead me to think that it is the very core of the MV business model that attracts such scum.
And when the many honourable people who’ve graced these pages by opening their hearts with their tales of MV woe speak, they’re rebutted by the scum with the pat phrase that they “didn’t work hard enough”.
Scum. Absolutely.
Oh my. That wasn’t a nice read Vogel! That disgusting man has found a way to steal but without the government being able to find out, a church. I am sure that he orchestrates these very public financial offerings for those “in need” so that people believe that he really is a good man. Just Larsen/Hart and the More Project on a smaller level.
I truly hope that people in his area read that article and stay the hell away from him. This man sounds like a complete sociopath.
I agree that not all distributors are like this Strangely, but you are the company you keep. If people like Calo are attracted to this “business (ahem) opportunity” and are embraced by the company, alarm bells should be going off in distributor’s heads. Come on people! Really? What will it take to see that criminals are attracted to this company for a REASON!
Nice article Vogel!
I think it’s positive news in the respect that Monavie was mentioned with this dirtball. That should be a great warning to people. I bet MV is not all too happy that he took they’re advice and stayed “branded”.
What he was doing with his so called church and preaching to “his people” seems to be the typical teachings of Monavie. The resemblence is eerie…
When people say they’ve never heard anyone making illegal claims, tell them to log onto facebook and search Monavie. By doing so, you can read all kinds of wonderful garbage. This lady though in my opinion takes the cake.
Colleen Burke King (Gold Executive):
“The key to better health is balanced nutrition. When we give our Body what God intended it to have….It will heal itself the way God designed it to do! Even from things like Autism, ADHD, and BiPolar, or the everyday ailments like, cold, flu, aches and pains, high cholesterol, lack of sleep and low energy….just to name a few. This is why Monavie is….LIFE IN A BOTTLE!”
This crap baffles my mind. She kind of makes me want to vomit.
I spotted this post
http://www.workathometruth.com/blog/2011/02/17/impeding-scalability-in-fraud/
which mentions the Utahn AG (Shurtleff) and his connections to the MLM industry. A link takes us to this entertaining post from The Salty Droid which is well worth a read as he names Shurtleff, “the Attorney General of MLM”.
http://saltydroid.info/mark-shurtleff-attorney-general-of-mlm/
In his piece he links Shurtleff to a whole host of dismal websites and publications, nepotistic and quasi-religious connections, as well as his Nelson-like blind-in-both-eyes approach to legal issues.
Q. So how does this relate to Monavie.
A. Well for starters, MV is an Utahn MLM…
…but also, Salty Droid mentions an Utahn business, USANA Health Sciences.
The Youtube video of Shurtleff in 2004 is highly reminiscent of the Monavie conferences – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15KV7D_3vx8
…but also, according to Wikipedia, USANA has engaged in many similar activities to Monavie for which they have been successfully, and heavily prosecuted!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USANA_Health_Sciences
Quotes from the article:
———————————————
———————————————
All of the above displays a yawning yet saddening similarity to Monavie (and also Protandim, which LazyMan talks about here http://www.lazymanandmoney.com/lifevantage-protandim-scam/)
The similarities just beggar belief. The common factors all point back to Utah and they all end up on the doorstep of the Utahn AG whose task it is to regulate or prosecute.
MORE Project Funds Misappropriated to Support Executive’s Pet Project
I was just checking up on the MORE Project’s IRS990 filings on Guidestar. Since my last posts reviewing their most recent (2009) filing, they have posted two additional IRS990s (for 2007 and 2008). Interestingly, the 2008 and 2007 990s were both filed on May 14, 2010 (by new MORE treasurer Corey Jensen). Obviously, they were years late in filing these required documents with the IRS. They filed them not long after our discussions in April (http://www.juicescam.com/the-more-project-is-misusing-funds) in which it was pointed out that the MORE Project had never filed an IRS 990. This suggests to me that they scrambled to file these forms for fear of being charged for tax evasion and charity fraud by the feds.
http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments//2007/203/770/2007-203770594-0614b175-9.pdf
Conspicuous in the 2007 filing is a $34,000 expenditure that went to the Spectrum Academy, a charter school in Utah. It just so happens that Henry Marsh has a son that attends the academy, and someone named Andrew Marsh (no doubt another relative of Henry’s) is on Spectrum’s board of directors. In other words, we have here another example of misappropriation of charitable donations (against the organization’s stated mandate of helping impoverished families in Brazil) and nepotism.
http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments//2007/203/770/2007-203770594-0614b175-9.pdf
In this self-adulating press release, Marsh alleges that he bought a house for the Spectrum Academy, but he doesn’t mention that he dipped into MORE’s donations to do it. What an a-hole.
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/MonavieFortLauderdale/message/8
Keep up the good work Vogel.
I felt sick after reading your post Vogel. Is there anything that can be done? What else are they doing with the MORE project funds? This has to be illegal,no? What can be done about this?
Great… Now there’s another one.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23071982/
It’s not all that new. The article has been around since 2008 and it was probably around before that. You could see some more in the navigation sidebars at http://www.juicescam.com/.
I noticed that the date on the page was a while ago. But msnbc just updated the story last sunday… Are they still in business?
I have somebody trying to get me to come to a meeting. Says he is going to retire from this? He say it’s not about buying the juice, just come and see what it is all about? Wondering if it is a scam……….
Yes Claude it is a scam.
::CHRISTIANS BEWARE::
I’m not sure if Monavie heals, or if it’s healthier than a $2 bowl of berries, but I do know, as a Christian, that it is teaching and encouraging motives that are completely unbiblical.
As Christians, wealth is an idol and to be considered a dangerous thing (Mark 10:23). To crave worldly possessions is against Scripture (1 John 2:15-16), though this seems to be the very driving force of their message.
They have a website on the MORE project, which I believe is their “Christian” hook. While I don’t want to discredit any of the good that Monavie may have brought Brazil, I’m confident that there are better Christian organizations to donate money too. Ones that actually promote their involvement in sharing the Gospel through similar missions.
I could be completely wrong, but considering that I can find very little mention of Jesus Christ in any of their literature or website, I’m afraid that Monavie is really a cult, believing that money/juice is God. Please reconsider you’re involvement in this group, and how to spend your money.
I’d love to think that Monavie is not fooling Christians everywhere, but I cannot deny it. If anyone has any resources, please post.
Thanks,
Christian Against Monavie
Do yourself a favour Claude, read up on this scam by reading the posts here and the articles on juicescam.com before you agree to go to any meeting. I think you will be persuaded that it is a scam in a matter of minutes. Read the Wikipedia definition as well.
Rather telling that Claude was told it “isn’t about buying the juice”…really? They are not even bothering to cover the pyramid scheme up with that pesky product they are supposed to be selling.
Claude,
Don’t bother going to “see what it is all about”. Typical Monavie lingo trying to rope you in…
Save your time and money, it’s a scam.
Claude,
go… and play dumb and get free samples and than go home and make drinks.
nothing more refreshing than an Acai Martini – shaken not stirred of course.
The health benefits of a happy positive attitude and lifestyle are unmeasurable.
“nothing more refreshing than an Acai Martini – shaken not stirred of course.”
Yes, shaken of course! But why acai instead of a fresh fruit martini? Acai is mulched and preserved and shipped to the US by slow boat in industrial drums. I can think of a lot of fresh unprocessed fruits that would make a MUCH better martini than that crap – no offense.
“The health benefits of a happy positive attitude and lifestyle are unmeasurable.”
Uhhh – they are measurable – they are just not very dramatic. To tell you the truth, I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with the whole positive psych movement – it’s really such colossal BS. It started to get real traction in the last 25 or so years, when corporations, following massive layoffs, started to leverage it to keep their remaining workers from bitching about the reality of lower wages and a greatly increased workload. It just numbs people to reality and keeps them from asking penetrating questions, because doing so is deemed “negative”. It’s an attempt to replace reality with fantasy. Then it got leveraged by so called new age health guru airheads like Chopra and was later institutionalized by self-serving idiot snakeoil advocates like Orrin Hatch and Dan Burton, who successfully lobbied for the creation of OAM/NCCAM.
The notion that being positive can benefit your health is an offshoot of early research on the negative health effects of stress (a link which has since been greatly exaggerated), which morphed into the so-called “mind-body connection” and created legions of bloviating dimwits who proclaim that anything can be accomplished through positive thinking. Yuck! So cultish…so dehumanizing.
Like I said, any effect that being positive has on one’s health can be measured. If you puruse the research, you’ll see that it hasn’t led to any earth-shattering findings; certainly nothing that justifies the kind of hype this area received in the past. As a result, research interest has waned.
Vogel is right Claude.
MV is that bad. Its so bad that its not even worth free. No sarcasm… but maybe you could still hustle some anyway and use the bottles for something creative. Gotta be something!
like a flower vase….. yes that’s it, pour out the MV, but it would have to be for one of the following flowers
Mimosa
Ming Fern
Misty Blue Limonium
Melalueca
Marguerite Daisy (my favorite)
Why? …. cuz the bottle is MV for flowers with the names starting with M and they are in a “V”ase of course.
I wrote about yet another scheme today. This one is openly telling people that it’s a pyramid scheme:
Pyramid Schemes and the One24/NatraBurst Scam
Vogel, that is interesting stuff, I think that companies like Monavie are cashing in on the whole “say yes to life” strategy (when in fact they are only saying “say yes to Monavie”) and so being positive=good and negative=bad. It isn’t that cut and dried though.
Would you agree that the placebo effect is a form of positive thinking & that we have shown that it works? If that is the case, I think that positive thinking has a very valuable role in one’s life but it is only part of the answer. You need to be open to the possibility that you might be wrong about something and being “positive” with the definition that you describe,doesn’t allow for this. How would we ever learn from our mistakes?
Companies like Monavie take it to the worst level possible by saying that being inquisitive and realistic = negative. I believe that you are absolutely right in that regard. They (and their predecessors that you mention) have bastardized the word and the meaning to use this as a tool of manipulation.
Another off shoot of the “positive thinking” movement was to “follow your bliss”, or “pursue your passion” & don’t listen to those who tell you you can’t!! I highly doubt that most distributors start off in life saying “I want to be the best juice sales person EVER” or “in my lifetime I want to rip as MANY people off as I can with this pyramid scheme”, so there is a disconnect because the “passion” is no longer a manifestation of one’s own talents (because most of these people aren’t remotely talented “sales people”) but of greed. I think that ALWAYS fails unless you have sociopathic tendencies.
Wow, I am thinking way too hard now. I hope that made sense!
Somewhat appropo to MonaVie. I hope we read the same article on them one day.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41737747
Boca Energy Bracelet Company Hit With Lawsuit….
A Michigan woman says the energy bracelets a Boca Raton-based company sells on late-night TV infomercials don’t do a bit of good, and she’s looking for a big payday.
Arjana Xexo has filed a lawsuit after she paid $19.90 plus $15.90 for shipping and handling for two iRenew bracelets that she was shocked to discover didn’t improve her health, according to the Palm Beach Post.
Xexo has filed a lawsuit, and her lawyer estimates damages at $5 million.
The infomercials for the rubber bracelets with a metal insert say it helps with overall health and helps rebalance one’s “Biofield.”
John Merritt, president of Boca-based iRenew Bio Energy Solutions LLC, wasn’t available for comment.
Late last year, Harvest Trading Group, the company that markets the bracelets, received an F rating from the Better Business Bureau.
Xexo’s attorney is asking to be allowed to sue on behalf of hundreds of others who bought the bracelets and were dissatisfied.
Humiliated states “Would you agree that the placebo effect is a form of positive thinking & that we have shown that it works?”
How often have we also seen distributors harping on about a placebo effect being something positive, that people should be happy with wrongly believing it is having some effect?!
Sounds more like DELUSION to me:
A delusion is a fixed belief that is either false, fanciful, or derived from deception.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusion
Any person’s belief in Monavie is as appropriately defined above and most notably -“derived from deception”
OK guys I dig and dig and found some dirty little secrets!! http://www.businessforhome.org/2011/02/evolvhealth-and-xowii-merger/
Look at the list of top 43 distributors!! ohh ohhh I think a new MONAWAVE is coming but in the form of XOWII!!
Sad Sad very very SAD!!!